Is it time to retire the term “pussy bow”? How did it come to be? Beyond the cute cat at the window, the more vulgar connotations are insulting to many women. What else could it be called? — Lisa, New York
The pussy-bow blouse is one of those fashion terms that has taken on multiple connotations over the decades, all of which have culminated in its current incarnation: political lightning rod. It was not always thus.
In the beginning, the style, which essentially refers to a blouse with a floppy tie that looks sort of like a cross between a bow tie, a cravat and a thin scarf, was known as a lavaliere or lavaliere shirt.
Reportedly associated with the Duchess of La Vallière, a mistress of Louis XIV, it became popular among the French left in the 19th century, was later adopted as part of the Gibson girl look in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was then popularized by Coco Chanel and Yves Saint Laurent in the 1950s and ’60s. The term itself made its debut in 1930s dress patterns, thanks to its resemblance to the ribbons it was then popular to tie — yup — around the necks of feline pets.
The look was often “associated with women who are starting to invade male spaces — the golf course, the workplace — and to challenge traditional dress codes,” Kate Strasdin, a fashion historian at Falmouth University, told The Guardian when the newspaper spoke to her after Kate Moss’s appearance at the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial. (Ms. Moss had worn a jacket and polka-dot bow blouse.)
More than Ms. Moss, the women invading traditional male spaces most associated with the tie-neck blouse were the working women of the late 1970s and ’80s, and their role model, Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. At least until the 2016 presidential election in the United States, the Donald Trump “grab them by the pussy” scandal and Melania Trump’s wearing a blouse with a bow at the neck at a Biden-Trump debate soon after.
Cue social media double-entendre delight.
Suddenly, rather than suggesting the breaking of glass ceilings or cute household pets, the blouse became freighted with symbolism signifying a problematic marriage, the fight for power over the female anatomy — and anti-Trump resistance. All of that semiology is now being worn, and borne, by Kamala Harris, as she adopts the blouse-with-floppy-bow as part of her uniform.
The blouse’s history could not have escaped her. You can bet she and her team considered all of the above before she decided to go with the style. They knew exactly what the term would suggest.
So is it insulting? Or is it subversive? Is it a weapon of the social media era — and if so, should it really be retired or should it be celebrated? History is littered with the stories of terms once seen as derogatory reappropriated by the very interest groups they were once used against and turned into mottos of resistance. My sense is the pussy-bow blouse is reaching this stage.
If the name makes you uncomfortable, you can always just call it a tie-neck blouse. Though it doesn’t have quite the same ring.
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