See that big cabbage-rose perched on the back of a mop of tangled hair? Or the bright blue feathers tucked under a diamante dragonfly? It's what you call boho chic. Love it for its flair, or hate it for its clutter, you can't deny that it's certainly a look. Previously the domain of Ireland's young wannabe aristo set and the ditzy girls of London town, it's a look in which more and more clued-in chicks on the streets are beginning to indulge.
Boho chic really started in London - although Manhattan-ites will try to tell you otherwise - where trend-setters from Camden Town to Portobello and the Kings Road started to have fun with accessories rather than buying into a look. As with all street fashion (a more enduring animal than the fickle cat-walk specimen) the look created, borrowed and stole from all sorts of influences.
Originality and being in possession of a "one-off" began to be more important than having the same twin-set as everybody else. It was this love of the unique (rather than penury) that made the hunt for second-hand finds so ubertrendy - you could have a scruffy leopardskin purse or a diamante-encrusted belt safe in the knowledge that nobody else would have one too.
Like any fashion craze, boho chic has leached in two directions - on to the catwalk and into the mass market. Designer Stella McCartney, always a leader in the London boho set (and a woman who has sported some fine hair accessories in her time), was taken on by Chloe, and her cheeky collections mean you can now pay lots and lots of money for that vintage look rather than simply buying it second-hand. Designer Mathew Williamson does something similar using another boho babe, Jade Jagger, as muse, while others sporting the look include aristo model Iris Palmer, Lady Amanda Harlech, and journalist Kira Joliffe, whose fanzine, Cheap Date, is a paean to boho chic.
The look has escaped from the hothouse of London cool and is popping up all over the place, here included. The rash of beaded, sequinned and sparkly items in every high street shop can claim as an ancestor the boho chic movement. Of course, if it's in all the stores it's highly unlikely the true lover of boho chic would touch it; boho haunts are second-hand clothes stores, out of the way boutiques and - above all - female relatives' attics. Boho chic is hard to define as its practitioners are dogged in their pursuit of something completely different. Teaming a wacky straw and raffia basket with a pair of rhinestone-encrusted stilettos and a skin-tight cat suit found in Mummy's hilarious 1970s wardrobe would be boho. So would wearing a thick, tweed skirt, white ankle socks and cocktail shoes with a children's T-shirt (preferably one depicting a Japanese cartoon character). Oh, and a sequinned cardigan.
Whatever selection of completely disparate items is stacked up in conflicting combinations, one thing is by and large constant - the boho chick will not step foot outside the door without some hair accessories, whether it's just a few, coloured kirby-grips or a fullon set of feather-bedecked combs. When it comes to hair, the same rules of engagement apply - it must be eclectic, it must be unusual and it must be unlikely.
That said, certain elements do crop up again and again when it comes to hair-clips; feathers, fluff, sequins, glitter and the downright tacky are all popular. Big, overblown fake flowers in rich, antique colours are an archetypal boho look while butterflies (of the enamel, feathered or bejewelled variety) are also darlings. Cutesy kids' hairclips stolen from Barbie sets or picked up in Mothercare feature in the eclectic ballroom of boho chic as well as in the clubwear world.
In the main, therefore, it's feminine, slightly eccentric and fun - and therein lies its appeal. Wearing a big pink rose tucked into your mussed-up hair, you feel ever-so-slightly 1920s elegant, ever so slightly Carmen Miranda exotic. With a few feathers on a comb pulling your hair to one side, you know you stand out from the crowd but you also know that you look, well, pretty.
It's a look that says a lot about your outlook, a little about your lifestyle, but most of all it means you can have more fun with your hair than you've had since fourth class.
