If you are reading this, then you are probably already well aware of just how much bows are being shoved down our throats. I feel like it’s time I addressed it. From the runway to boutiques to DIY arts and crafts at home, everywhere we look resembles a six-year-old’s daydream. We just cannot seem to get enough of them! In November, Vogue even declared that “Bows are back!” They are in our hair, on our bags, shoes, jewelry, computers, dogs, cats, you name it. I have bows painted on my fingernails as I type this for christ’s sake.
To get a bit technical, we can attribute this to the all-too-famous rise of Coquette culture. This is a playful, whimsical, and borderline dress-up aesthetic with child-like motifs such as gingham, lace, pastels, poofy sleeves, and tights in ballet slippers. It’s funny, when I type all of those traits, my mind immediately goes to the Lower East Side cult designer, Sandy Liang.
For those of you who are in the dark, Sandy Liang started her self-titled brand in 2014 and can be described as an ode to girlhood, nostalgia, and grandmothers in Chinatown. When I first stumbled upon her brand in 2021, I was as smitten as a kitten. It felt as though someone had taken a page out of the storybook that is my childhood and designed a wardrobe based on it. I must say, it plucked my heart strings a bit to browse the website full of dresses that my mother had me sporting when I was five. I didn’t really know that other girls were attracted to this type of dressing in the same way that I was. Quickly I learned just how many were in the same wicker basket as me. I was touched.
Of course, I immediately started saving up for a set, and when I finally pulled the trigger and it arrived at my home, I must admit I felt a bit taken advantage of. For the price I paid, the quality was a bit disappointing. It felt as though someone had taken advantage of my admittedly toxic nostalgia and sold me something that felt downright cheap. I recently saw a Reddit post (I SWEAR this was the only time I have ever dared to log on) that said “Sandy Liang is just Shein for rich American girls,” and I wish I could disagree. Since then, everything Coquette coded I have steered clear of.
That is, until I was recently reminded of who the queen of bows and everything coquette truly is: Simone Rocha. Listen, I am going to admit, I only ever heard of Simone Rocha when she did a collaboration with H&M. Go ahead, call me a bad fashion blogger. But, I will say that when the SSENSE sale happens twice a year, I make a mad dash to the Simone Rocha section and buy as many bows as I can. Debuting her first collection in Milan Fashion Week in 2018, Rocha is known for her subversive take on girl hood. She pairs pearls and gems with black leather and studs. Or toile skirts with combat boots. She is the mother of Coquette culture and does it the best because she has a unique take on it. She recently took over Jean-Paul Goltier’s brand for two seasons of fashion week and birthed some of the finest looks that Paris has ever seen. When asked about her collection, she said that it is a part of a trilogy (the first being her collection for her Spring 2024 collection, then her collection with JPG for Spring 2024, and the next will be Fall 2024), that serves as an homage to mourning. When speaking with Harper’s Bazaar, she said, “This couture show is the procession of the two coming together, and then in February, it’ll be almost like the wake.” This can be seen through her black bridal dresses with jeweled lips and dresses resembling capes. She also said that it was her new take on feminine clothing, with corsets not being worn for a constructional reason like reducing waist size, but rather for their beauty, with long bows and ribbons loosely tied down the sides. Once again, we see Rocha’s modern perspective on femininity and its confines, or rather lack thereof, that she defines it by. She is putting femininity in tandem with brutality, perhaps speaking to the ways in which women can weaponize their own girlhood.
So why are we feeling so tied (no pun intended) to bows? Are we reaching for a girlhood that we have been deprived of due to disillusioned feminism? Are we consumed by nostalgia? Are we just blindly following designers like Sandy Liang? I think it is a combination of all of these things.
Culture critics have coined the year 2023 as “The Year of the Doll.” This is thanks to nuggets in media such as Barbie, Poor Things, Priscilla, The Guest, and many many more. Culture is drenched in the frills of girlhood, and what it means to take power in that. Perhaps I am way off base here, but I think what is at the core of this is weaponizing hyper-femininity for the better. So what if I want to drink out of dainty tea cups and listen to Taylor Swift while dressed in head-to-toe lace? It’s FUN! And listen, I love feminism, I do. But I think a lot of it has been rooted in this whole “fight like a girl” and “throw like a girl” and I can run a multi-billion dollar company if I want to. While that’s all dandy and swell, it is equally as empowering to cry while watching Sophia Coppola’s The Virgin Suicides or be a bimbo trophy-wife. Literally, who cares? People like Simone Rocha and Sandy Liang have found the radicalness in hyper-femininity and I personally am making a bow my weapon of choice.
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