Will we ever see the end of leopard print on women’s clothing? I recently met a friend after work at happy hour, and of about nine women in the area four wore leopard print: jacket, blouse, leggings, handbag. What is the appeal, and where did it even come from? And what is the best way to wear it? — Julianne, Ann Arbor, Mich.
Leopard print — indeed, all animal prints, including zebra, python, cow and many not actually found in nature — have been with us since our long-ago ancestors turned the pelts of the animals they killed for food into clothing. Its role as a signifier has changed according to time and context, but it has never really disappeared, even as fur itself has fallen out of favor. While the lion may be king of the jungle, the leopard, or at least the leopard’s spots, is the king of fashion.
Michael Kors, in one of my favorite terms ever, called it “an outrageous neutral.”
For centuries, leopard skin was a sign of wealth and power — Sheshat, the Egyptian goddess of wisdom, was always depicted in a leopard skin, as was the Greek god Dionysus, and Zulu kings began wearing the skin in the 19th century. It entered the general style lexicon in the 1930s thanks to the film “Tarzan the Apeman,” which featured Maureen O’Sullivan in, yup, leopard. Christian Dior solidified its status when he included a leopard print in his first fashion show in 1947 (the one that gave the world the New Look).
Elizabeth Taylor loved leopard, as did Jackie Kennedy. Mrs. Robinson wore leopard. So did Jayne Mansfield — and Sid Vicious. Roberto Cavalli and Dolce & Gabbana built empires on it. It’s a staple in Las Vegas. It suggests predators, confidence, flamboyance, camp and animal attraction.
(On that subject: In 2013 the Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey, England, banned visitors from wearing leopard and tiger print for fear it was confusing the animals, who saw visitors as either prey or potential, um, friends.)
If you want to know more, check out the 2018 book, “Fierce: the History of Leopard Print.”
Still, there is a fine line between the haute and the highly kitschy when it comes to a leopard print wardrobe, as the star of the 2020 documentary “Tiger King,” the wildly (couldn’t help it) popular Netflix series of the pandemic lockdown, showed.
Best practice, Mr. Kors said, is to think of it as “one of those rare fashion exclamation points that is both noticeable and timeless” and wear it as such: “mixed with everything from refined black to denim to olive cargo pants,” as opposed to as a full look on its own. See, for example, Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, whose signature leopard print coat is about to go up for auction at Sotheby’s (the estimate is $20,000 to $30,000) and who often wore it with a simple black turtleneck and jeans.
The popularity of leopard print tends to go in cycles, and when it comes to those cycles, we are in the midst of a major upswing.
According to Alexandra Van Houtte, the founder of the fashion search engine Tagwalk, leopard print is up 944 percent in collections this fall. “It pops back approximately every four years within the runway shows,” she said — “most of the time during the autumn-winter seasons.”
Nonetheless, she pointed out that we may have reached peak leopard, since there was almost no leopard in the recent spring collections. But if there’s one thing you can be sure of, it will roar back again.
Your Style Questions, Answered
Every week on Open Thread, Vanessa will answer a reader’s fashion-related question, which you can send to her anytime via email or Twitter. Questions are edited and condensed.
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