Boho Aesthetic: When Style Becomes Cultural Appropriation

Writer: Tara Kaur Phull

With its roots in 18th-century France, ‘Boho’ fashion has been constantly recycled into new fashion trends, but with a different face. Its popularity extends past fashion and reaches into interior design, lifestyle and western culture. While often celebrated for its carefree quality, the boho aesthetic frequently crosses into cultural appropriation, raising important questions about respect, ownership, and ethics in style.

The whole aesthetic is formed around the word bohemian meaning ‘socially unconventional in an artistic way’. Coming from 19th-century European bohemians who were artists, writers and nomads. Leading into the 1960s-70s, we saw a counterculture revival with tie-dye, fringe, flowing silhouettes and handmade jewelry. This brings us to the 21st-Century where it’s often associated with bangles, long patterned skirts, dangly earrings and scarfs with dresses. Boho fashion draws its inspiration from a diverse global network: Indigenous patterns and beadwork; South Asian textiles; North African rugs and décor and Native American headdresses and jewellery.

In Indian culture, bangles – specifically gold bangles – can represent everything from status and wealth to romantic love and sentimentality. Not only do they represent a woman’s marital status, but they can also represent social status. When an Indian bride gets married, they usually wear ‘chura’ (a red bangle set) for a minimum of 40 days; bangles are often handmade and involve intricate designs ‘kaḍhā'ī’. The new bangle trend infringes on this tradition by removing the meaning and sentiment, as like with the recent trend of scarfs with dresses - which imitates a ‘chuni’ worn with South Asian clothing through the way in which it is worn, draped across the body, or worn with heavily embroidered gowns like anarkali suits. 

In high-end fashion, we can see similarities between North African traditional wear - especially in Spring/Summer collections. Djellabas and kaftans are often seen, where the sacred tapestries and patterns are replicated and sold for hundreds of pounds. Furniture companies like IKEA sell 'oriental rugs’ that mimic the design of a berber rug. The craft of weaving a berber rug is passed down through generations, primarily among women, who learn the craft through assisting older family members. The process is labour-intensive and long, and mass production companies take away from the handmade element. 

So how do we define the line between inspiration and appropriation? The question of cultural appropriation within the boho aesthetic does not just derive from fashion trends - it is about the deeper impact on the communities whose traditions are being borrowed, repackaged and sold.  What is celebrated as “boho” on a runway or in a lifestyle blog can look very different when members of those same cultures are marginalized or even discriminated against for wearing their own clothing or jewelry in everyday life. This double standard reveals a power imbalance: one group enjoys the freedom of styling themselves as “worldly” or “artistic,” while another faces stereotyping.

It is possible to appreciate a culture’s fashion and art without exploiting them? Nowadays, bangles, scarfs, and kaftans can be worn in appropriate ways. Through buying items of a culture made by native people, you can help in keeping tradition and art forms alive, whilst giving money to overlooked communities. Despite the arguments against cultural appropriation, we encourage people to learn more about other cultures through different media. By learning the history and meaning behind cultural items ensures their sentimentality isn’t erased and helps to uplift those marginalised communities.

Please note that this is an opinion article and the views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are a generalisation of a certain situation for sake of the argument.