Reputation, Celebrities and History of Leopard Fashion

This week, we're turning the spotlight over to Amélie. This bubbly 29-year-old is a brand ambassador, a fashion fanatic, and somewhat knowledgeable about today's fashion trends, as well as those of yesterday. Enjoy reading everyone, and thank you, Amélie, for spending time on the blog section of the online store! 🥰

First off, I want to say I'm hands down the girl who proclaims leopard print a neutral. The black and beige pattern works with almost any color palette, jewel tones, skin tones, and more. It can be dressed up or down, it flatters every figure, and it's popping up so often on the runways that it's hard to call it a trend in 2020...

And yet, what the leopard print conveys in Western fashion is very changeable, especially when it comes to social class. And in this article, I'm going to list some influential women (sometimes men) who have made it their trademark.

Think, for example, of Jackie Kennedy's leopard-print coat, or Bob Dylan singing about the "leopard-skin pillbox hat." Think of Diane von Furstenberg's wraparound dresses, displaying ultra-wild leopard print... All these legendary photos evoke a kind of old-fashioned femininity, reinforced by the impeccable confidence that comes with quality clothing. 🖤

Leopard Reputation

Leopard print can also be a sign of bad taste and trashiness, as it is sometimes (unfortunately) associated with 80s women who were prostitutes. Some of the American magazines of the time played on it a lot. We think in particular of Fran Drescher in a leopard print miniskirt , or Lil' Kim squatting with her legs spread in this infamous promo photo from 1996, her crotch barely covered by a leopard print thong.

Since then, the reputation of our leopard print has sometimes been associated with practices and women who didn't necessarily have a good reputation. And this is one of the projects of the My Léopard brand: to restore the image of this legendary print in France. 😎

I think it would be insulting for me to talk about fashion and leopard print while ignoring the main stakeholders: the real leopards. And for that, I found an article in English (which I translated) talking about a man named Craig Saffoe, who is "Curator of Big Cats at the National Zoo in Washington." He says:

"Leopards are independent, they're adaptable, they're found in all environments. They sleep in trees, they can swim in water, they're born to single mothers. They're very powerful, independent, and beautiful animals. I think we have an identification with animals." 🐆

What we can take away from these words is certainly that we want to identify ourselves by wearing a (fake) animal skin. Humans have long borrowed from leopards, both in fashion and iconography. Usually, this involved killing the animals and wearing their fur . Seshat, the Egyptian goddess of wisdom, was depicted wearing leopard skins . Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, was associated with the leopard, and was sometimes depicted wearing its fur. The Anatolian goddess Cybele was often depicted near leopards. Leopard fur was prized wherever the animal lived, and leopard print appeared on textiles used in 18th-century French and Italian clothing.

History of the Leopard in Fashion

None of the above explains how leopard fur and leopard print entered Western fashion. The proliferation of leopard print is primarily due to the rise of mass-produced clothing and the development of synthetic materials.

Before the 1930s, most clothing was made to order and relatively expensive. People who weren't wealthy had small, functional wardrobes and were largely excluded from the fashion world . But by the early 20th century, technological and economic changes had created cheaper, mass-produced clothing that the middle class could afford.

Clothing advertisements in the 1930s promoted velveteen and chenille as affordable alternatives to leopard fur. Around this time, Lanvin made silk dresses with leopard prints . But it wasn't until 1947 that leopard print really came into its own, when Christian Dior included it in his first "New Look" collection. Leopard print wasn't used as a fur or faux fur, but as a print. Fashion critic Alexander Fury of T magazine called leopard print "the leitmotif of the house of Dior," noting that the designer's muse, Mitzah Bricard, often wore the pattern. 💁‍♀️

In the 1950s, the American lingerie brand Vanity Fair began selling leopard-print underwear. The pattern subsequently appeared regularly in mass-produced lingerie collections and later in swimwear, contributing to the pattern's association with female sexuality.

Celebrities and Leopard

Leopard print was a favorite of Eartha Kitt's. In one photo, Kitt wears a leopard coat over a dress and holds a cheetah on a leash. The print seems perfect for Eartha, who embodied feline qualities even before she played Catwoman and sang songs about using her feminine wiles to woo wealthy men.

In 1962, Jackie Kennedy wore a leopard-skin coat by Oleg Cassini. The coat caused a sensation, but it also led to a surge in demand for real leopard skin, resulting in the deaths of as many as 250,000 leopards. Cassini spent the rest of his life feeling guilty about the harm he had done to the animal population. ❌

In 1966, the song "Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" appeared on Bob Dylan's album, Blonde on Blonde. The song was supposedly about Edie Sedgwick. I've only seen one photo of Edie in leopard print, but it's absolutely stunning.

Émilie Régnier is a photographer whose 2017 exhibition, "From Mobutu to Beyoncé," at the Bronx Documentary Center, featured a series of portraits of people wearing the print. In one of the photos, an African woman in a leopard bikini clutches her stomach on the beach in Gabon. In Texas, Larry the Leopard Man lies naked on a couch, showing off the blue leopard spots tattooed on nearly every inch of his body. 💉 "People who wear leopard print have told me they feel beautiful, strong, powerful, and sexy," he said.

Leopard Print in the United States

In the United States, the Endangered Species Act of 1973 banned the importation and sale of leopard skins, meaning that leopard print took over. Despite this law, poaching for the sale of leopard skin and parts remains widespread. Leopards are listed as "threatened" on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List, and poaching rates are similar to those of tigers.

In the 1970s, Iggy Pop performed shirtless in leather pants and an unzipped leopard jacket . Sid Vicious occasionally wore a leopard-print vest. But it was Poison Ivy of the Cramps who perfected the marriage of leopard print and punk. She paired leopard-print stockings with leather boots and glossy red lipstick, resulting in a kind of nightmarish Peggy Bundy effect, a decade before "Married... with Children" hit the airwaves.

In 1991, leopard print was once again showcased by Azzedine Alaïa, whose fall/winter collection that year featured top models like Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, and Nadège du Bospertus in head-to-toe leopard print. Corsets, coats, bodysuits, dresses, stiletto boots, berets—it's all there. The collection was maximalist and wild, yet sexy and sophisticated. ❤️

The '90s continued. Kurt Cobain paired a faux leopard jacket with a shabby T-shirt, a hunting cap, and prescription sunglasses. Scary Spice incorporated leopard print into her costumes. Enid Coleslaw wore a leopard-print miniskirt to visit a sex shop in Ghost World.

Michelle Obama and the Leopard

During the Obama years, Michelle Obama occasionally wore the print. Particularly on cardigans, or as a dress. She made leopard print accessible , something your friend's cool mom would wear. Sure, there was a nod to Jacqueline Kennedy, and maybe Eartha Kitt, but also to Jenna Lyons's J.Crew, of which the first lady was a famous fan.

"It's a print you wear because you want to project a kind of image to the world. I think we see fashion as consumption, but it's a way of choosing a second skin. We didn't choose the skin we were born in, but we can choose the skin we show," she told Times magazine. Classy!

Passionate about this print? Discover how to use leopard print for a unique interior design.