In a fierce update on the classic print, leopard goes on the prowl.
In a fierce update on the classic print, leopard goes on the prowl.
Jenna Lyons, Creative Director and President of J.Crew, and the master of mixing, has a saying, “As far as I’m concerned, leopard is a neutral.” So profound is this maxim—to fashion folk, at least— that if you Googled it, you’d find it Photoshopped into homemade picture frames. My friend Michelle Jank, a stylist, quotes it regularly, often while wearing up to five leopard things at once: coat, shirt, bag, shoes… And even carrying leopard tissues. And, no, she doesn’t look crazy—she looks cool as hell. Progressive. Artful. Her own woman! When I consider leopard print, the first thing that comes to mind is that classic Vanity Fair portrait of Jackie and Joan Collins in the backseat of a limousine in Los Angeles. Très Rodeo Drive. Jackie is swathed in a leopard coat, Joan kicks a leg over while inexplicably housing a white rose in her cleavage. (Of course, they’re both wearing sunglasses.) They look like foxy ladies. Foxy ladies who flirt with pool boys and drink in the day. And that’s grand, but it took me some time, frankly, to think of leopard as chic or cool. However, Kate Moss has been a huge help with this perception. If leopard print had a patron, it is Ms. Moss—paparazzi’d as she has been on many a London street, swaddled in the perfect three-quarter leopard number, collar up, jeans just skinny enough to make the coat the focus. A few years ago, the New York skate brand Supreme capitalised on Moss’ iconography by shooting her in a spotted coat and logo t-shirt and plastering her all over the city. You wanted what she was having. And wearing. For fall, leopard season began not during the season at all, but at Saint Laurent’s Los Angeles show in February. Cruising through ’70s YSL style, Hedi Slimane threw different shades of leopard on dresses cinched with a wide belt and flagrantly rock-star coats that looked like they were pulled from Mick Jagger’s disco-era closet. At the start of the collections in New York, animal print took off, rather surprisingly, at Calvin Klein. Calvin is normally to jungle print what Balmain is to a nun, so to see it splashed over coats and fluid dresses caused a full-on frisson. Then to Milan, and the deft hands of Miuccia Prada, paired with argyle tights and a gamine rockstar attitude (they can co-exist, at least at Prada). But then to Paris, and Dries Van Noten. Now fashion ladies say “Drieesss” in a blissful exhalation, like all their dreams have come true in one name. And if you think leopard is a neutral, this was the show for you. There’s something about the way Van Noten puts things together: exuberant but nonchalant, sometimes mad, but chic as chic can be. His leopard—on capes, coats, sweatshirts, trousers—was ecstatically sophisticated. The fashion crowd left cooing and having their assistants FedEx their leopard coats over from their closets. (They didn’t really, but wouldn’t that be glamorous?) Then to Givenchy, where Riccardo Tisci went to the mythical Egyptian jungle and showed a cat-alcade of coats. If you didn’t feel like queen of the jungle after that, you should probably take a season off. But that’s the thing—leopard is seasonless. And while right now it’s hotter than ever, it’s always been just… Cool. Especially for flirting with pool boys and drinking in the day.
