‘If you’re fair and sweet, don’t wear it,’ declared Christian Dior after the 1947 debut of his ‘New Look’ collection, the first by any designer to feature leopard print on the runway.
Throughout the twentieth century, leopard has stood as a polarising print whose meanings have been shaped by those who wear it and those who do not. Leopard print can be high fashion and expensive, it can be trashy and tacky, it can make one stand out and it has been considered a neutral. Famous characters, both fictional and real, have come to be defined by the print: Edie Sedgwick, Jackie Kennedy, Joan Collins, Pat Butcher, Bet Lynch, Kate Moss Naomi Campbell, Debbie Harry, Divine and Scary Spice. All are famous for their love of leopard print, yet each employ it in diverse ways and invoke different reactions indicative of the relationship between fashion and identity.
Fashion is an unspoken visual language that expresses personality and communicates to the outside world how we see ourselves and how we want to be seen. It is a central way identity is performed and read by others and therefore inherently linked to ideas surrounding gender, class, race, age, and sexuality. Fashion is particularly prevalent to youth culture and a key component of young people’s identity formation as they experiment with different cuts, fabrics and patterns that are transformed into symbolic statements about who they are. Ever since humans began wearing garments ‘they began assigning meaning to every aspect of them,’ and leopard print is no different. Jo Weldon has defined the print as ‘a pattern that helps animals blend in and humans stand out.’ It is a contested and contradictory print worn by Mods, Punks, Rockers and Drag artists and by women young and old from every social background. Its increasing availability throughout the Twentieth Century has seen it evolve from expensive furs worn exclusively by the wealthy in the 1920s, to a subversive symbol of rebellion and rejection of societal norms employed by different youth subcultures.
