Right on cue, the “boho chic” headlines are back: a trend that has been “revived” every summer for as long as I’ve been working in fashion publishing. Much of this is down to the clothes photographed at Coachella, which, being a music festival set in the Colorado Desert—where last weekend’s temperatures rose above 90 degrees—included macramé bra tops, low-slung bell bottoms, and flower crowns: items synonymous with pretty much every mass summer gathering since Woodstock 1969 first provided the boho-chic blueprint.
Someone clearly divorced from this entire rigmarole is Margot Robbie. The actor was photographed yesterday afternoon arriving by boat at Club 55 in Saint-Tropez, not in a crochet dress and basket bag à la bohemian style plate Jane Birkin, but—deep breath—a denim bucket hat and a V-neck knit and baggy jeans and suede loafers, with Chanel’s small shopping bag on one shoulder and an enormous tote and oversized leather jacket slung over the other. She looked like she was heading to an Oasis concert in the depths of winter. Proof, perhaps, that there is more than one way to dress for summer: that you need not concede to the trend cycle, nor the climate.
And thank God. I do not believe in dressing for the weather forecast, only in having the inner fortitude to override it. I am pleased to have evidence that Margo Robbie feels the same. Let’s see if this weekend’s attendees at Coachella take heed.
