A Short History of Boho

Boho is fashion. Intricate tiered earrings, bangle bracelets, hippie skirts. If you are into clothes or jewelry, you know what it is. Not everyone can wear it, but when someone wears it well, it is enchanting and romantic and that was what I set out to write about in this article. Surprisingly I find I have written about a thousand years of history which is by far the better story.

Boho is a modern term, Bohemian abbreviated and it means literally a person from Bohemia. The earliest version of the word is of Latin origin, a reference to a Celtic tribe occupying the area between Germany and Poland during the first century BCE. This place name which was originally a variation on the tribal name of Boii later became known of as Bohemia. Bohemians never called their country Bohemia, however, even though the rest of medieval Europe did. Citizens of the region called their country Czechy. Today it is the Czech Republic. But the Czech Republic, now and then, was not made up only of Czechs. Like many other countries it has a diverse population including Czech, German and Romany citizens and it is the Roma who concern us.

A history, even a very brief history, of the Romani people is well beyond the scope of this article. In Czechy, as in everywhere, the Roma faced discrimination and cruelty. Despite this treatment there was something that appealed to the Europeans in the Roma lifestyle. What was in part a method of survival was seen as a romantic nomadic life lived on the outskirts of society, full of adventure, free of the limitations and demands of the European status quo. And this was the mystique reportedly engendered by the Roma themselves and it is a mystique I think we all would like to believe in.

Boho in the modern sense owes its existence to the romantic notion of the Roma , a people not only seen as happy nomads but as a group outside conventional society and it is this position and societal outcasts that struck a chord in the mid 18th century. In this period, artists in France - the country of Renoir, Hugo, Matisse and Rodin - were historically excluded from society and thought of as badly educated and common. In the turbulent times surrounding the French revolution however privileged people began to associate with artists and themselves pursued art which served to both legitimize the vocation and the people who were part of it. Still feeling like outsiders, artists began to think of themselves as Boheme and the resulting free spirited lifestyle became an important aspect of the Romantic movement.

The art of the Romantic movement conveyed emotion and this was considered secondary to strictly representational work. It was open to all social classes and it's concepts were in both and artist and social sense.The earlier Bohemians paved the way for the great art of the of the mid 1800 onward. The impressionist and pre-Raphealite schools built on the Romantic philosophy of art. It's unconventional lifestyle stretched as far as the beat generation and in some circles continues even today.

So what is Bohemian? It is a style. A romantic but still fact based notion of a culture. It is an idea, a movement, and a lifestyle. It is art and the precursor of the art. It is the artistic life outside the bonds of the everyday. Even in its relatively superficial outward form it speaks to us of hippies, and gypsies, fashion, creativity and freedom. If we are into clothes or jewelry, we know it. It is long romantic skirts, exotic jewelry, and brightly colored beads. When we wear we feel different, a little outside conventional society, free-spirited, creative and, if even incrementally, braver. And this is important. Because as Matisse said, creativity takes courage.