Animal prints have mostly shied away from the fashion spotlight and particularly from our high street stores for quite some time now, until AW24. I can’t remember the last time we had a true leopard print revival, but I want to pin it around the 2013-2014 mark (and that would also stay true to the new ten, rather than twenty year trend cycle that operates in the fashion industry). Ahh, the mid 2010s, what a time. ‘Indie sleaze’ was in full swing, Tumblr was our social media of choice, the Arctic Monkey’s AM album soundtracked our days, and all the girls wore American Apparel tennis skirts in their varying pastel colours. I also remember leopard print being mixed in with grungier, 90’s inspired and Vivienne Westwood informed stylings. I remember getting my hands on a pair of Lazy Oaf (another 2010s IT brand) high-waisted leopard print skinny jeans at about 13 or 14. I only wore them a handful of times and sold them a few years later on Depop when leopard print was rendered obsolete (again).
If anything, it has surprised me that it’s taken this long for the leopard print renaissance of 2024. Though TikTok aesthetics aren’t strict styling standards to go off of, and not all of their numerous ‘styles’ permeate through to the mainstream as hoped (think Coastal Grandma or the dreadfully named Tomato Girl aesthetic), the ‘Mob Wife Aesthetic’ has been in circulation for quite some time now. When researching, I found articles detailing this aesthetic from January 2024, but as a style and emerging aesthetic, it had been floating around on various social media platforms a good few months before that. Particularly when AW23 saw a heavy focus on the adoption of the fur coat in our winter stylings, it was only a matter of time before fashion pieces of similar extravagance and decadence took centre stage.
Other trend theorists argued that the adoption of the Mob Wife Aesthetic came as a complete rejection to its predecessor, the ‘Clean Girl Aesthetic’, a style who’s unofficial ambassador was Sofia Richie, and which pushed for ‘quiet luxury’, unobvious displays of wealth, and minimalist, ‘clean’ make-up. It was all about elegance, and more importantly, class. It is classy to wear only mascara and a lip tint as you dress up in light denim, straight leg jeans and a demure white blouse. It is tasteful to wear your hair up in a sleek bun and wrap up in a blazer. Think muted colours, a capsule wardrobe, and dainty, barely-there jewellery. Only the poor (and tasteless) prove their status through loud, overt branding! Noticing the connection between attitudes of taste, style and class, Olah writes in Bad Taste: Or the Politics of Ugly, “it is not possible for alternative tastes to exist alongside one another in a horizontal fashion, but for these tastes to be ranked according to their place in a social hierarchy” (2023: 65). The old saying of ‘less is more’ was this aesthetics motto. Quiet was in, noisy was out.
Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City (1998)
That was until other TikTok users found fault with this aesthetic, either through discussions of class or just through a general distaste for minimalism. Discussions were imbued with the “maddening swirl of rhetoric, of class as taste and taste as class” (Olah, 2023: 84), further highlighting that social media platforms are becoming the new main ‘industries of taste’ (Olah, 2023) due to their unprecedented levels of influence and reach. Then along came the ‘Mob wife’, with her big fur jacket, gold jewellery, statement pieces, and loudness. Her long acrylics, leopard print, and general ostentatiousness. For makeup, think dark lip, smoky eye, and black eyeliner flicks. The name of course originates from the luxury style of dress adorned by the wives, girlfriends (and goomahs) of mafia men and is characterised by the popular styles of the 70’s and 90’s. The Mob Wife Aesthetic of today focuses more on late 90’s musings and of course the more contemporary outfits of the women from the popular reality show Mob Wives (2011).
Robert De Niro and Sharon Stone in Casino (1995)
Whilst marriage to a man involved in organised crime is not a prerequisite to this aesthetic, it borrows from these women their sense of being unabashedly them despite judgement from wider society, and from those with ‘old money’ whom they now rub shoulders with due to their new-found wealth. It is about being grown, sexy, ostentatious and alluring. Glamour is a huge element to this style. It’s fun, its maximalist and there’s a whole lot of leopard print.
When I think of leopard print, I think of vintage Roberto Cavalli, 90s Dolce & Gabbana, and Carrie Bradshaw or Samantha Jones from SATC, mostly just 90s fixtures of style. However, for others, leopard print brings to mind the words classless or tacky, or imaginings of Kat Slater from Eastenders. Funnily enough, the reason why I picked up the book Bad Taste was because of its bright leopard print and bold font design on big hardback. What I find ironic is that I assume leopard print was purposefully chosen because of its gaucheness and tastelessness at the time of the books conception. However, within a few years, leopard print is now back in the hearts of the tastemakers.
I am all here for leopard print. Mostly because I love dressing in brown. One of most prized wardrobe possessions is brown leather trench coat and my brown, fur-collar gilet. I also love wearing green (across the spectrum!), pink, and accessorising with baby blue and teal items, all colours that compliment brown. Red is another favourite colour of mine, particularly to wear in the winter as a daring pop of colour to our typically all-black outfits of the season. I’m much more of a warm tone than cold tone gal when it comes to my wardrobe. Leopard print invites rich reds to accompany it, and for something softer and more girly, pastel pinks and blushes. Below are some of my current leopard print finds, most of which have been sitting in my clothing wish list for a minute now.
T o start off, this gorgeous faux fur jacket in shades of caramel, brown and beige. Silence + Noise, £69
Love a bit of shirred fabric. Slash neck is a bonus. ASOS, £22
Cosy AND fashionable, now that’s practical. Pull & Bear, £35
You’ve got to have a longline fur jacket, at least once. Topshop, £115
Cavalli inspired slinky straight leg trousers. I adore these, most definitely my next purchase. Urban Outfitters, £34
Cardigans are the new in layering device so I had to feature one of my current favourites. With a slim fit, wear to layer or simply wear it as a top itself. ASOS, £24
So down with fur textures on jumpers, and high necks. Boohoo, £28 £19
Dreamy wide leg fit, even dreamier brown denim. So many ways to style. Topshop, £50
Ending how we started, with a jacket (and because I can’t get enough of coats) is this gorgeous Dolce & Gabbana adjacent cropped blazer. Structured with a lapel collar, it is very 90s. Also very ‘Mob Wives’ (if that’s your thing). Zara, £69.99
Fashion, at its heart, is about self-expression, but one would be naïve to think that’s all there is to it. Like politics, fashion adheres to a comparable logic, “not of ‘right’ versus ‘left’, but of ‘right’ versus ‘wrong’” (Olah, 2023: 73). We can see through the labelling of certain choices of attire as distasteful, or in more overtly classed terms, as ‘chavy’ or ‘trashy’, that instead of simply pertaining to items of clothing, fashion, and subsequent style is tied up with modes of class stratification and social hierarchy. Olah goes further, arguing clothes could “be considered a reflection of a moral and ethical framework” (2023: 96) by the upper-class tastemakers. When it comes to leopard print, maybe it’s just not for you, or perhaps you simply can’t get enough. Whether or not you like furry clothes decorated with animal print is a choice for you to make. However, your labelling of this particular trend and others alike, is in part, informed by the politics of taste, and that’s always something so interesting to explore and dissect.
So, is leopard print here to stay? Is it fab, or faux pas?
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