The boho disc belt is closing in on a new generation of Eat, Pray, Lovers

When PinkPantheress Arriving at the gig, she takes off the Depop disc belt. She takes off the Depop disc belt from her waist and throws it to the ground, like a gladiator fighting for his life. I’m not sure what PinkPantheress song requires that level of stagecraft but there is evidence of it happening here. With an airy, loosely slung across your hips Eat, Pray, Love, The disc belt was an ode to a time when women felt the need to dress up as if they were opening a vintage shop on Portabello Road. It was all about shapeless peasant skirts and off-putting sandals and smoking roll ups. 

The disc belt reached its peak between 2003 and 2005, primarily because of Kate Moss, Sienna Miller, and the newfound eroticism of suede waistcoats and “hobo” bags. It didn’t cinch a silhouette so much as it flattened one, but it was knowingly sexy in a low-maintenance way. It failed to fulfill a functional purpose.Much like the thin scarves of the Frazzled English Woman. It was an ineffective scaffolding device for low-rise denim. When worn by a certain kind of person (posh, but keen to hide their privilege) the boho belt sent up a distress signal among west Londoners with the phrase “I’m just gonna pop down to Bikram yoga with my boyfriend who is in a band and wears neckerchiefs” telegraphed in skywriting. 

Bikram’s look, although distinctly white-washed, is due to spiritual practices of South Asia. In a time when Vogue When I first wrote about Goa’s wellness retreats, these were the people who adorned their interiors with Buddha statues and Navajo-print Ottomans. They were the protoBali gap year elephant tattoo beach swizzles on Instagram type of wanderlusters. But this all surfaced long before the words “cultural appropriation” entered the mainstream, and when brought together in an aesthetic “boho” hodgepodge, the disc belt gestured to a “mood” – pseudo-spiritual, pseudo-folkish – rather than being a historically accurate portrayal of a certain demographic of people. 

Fashion is a marketing strategy that sells the idea of something rather than the actual thing. This causes the origins of garments to become blurred. See Marine Serre’s AW23 collection, where she accessorised looks with belts strung together from plates. According to one source, the disc belt is a descendant the concho belt that was worn by the Navajos. The belts became more extravagant and were popularized by Jim Morrison, who was a member of the Doors. Ralph Lauren, Chloé, Ferragamo, Sacai?, and Louis Vuitton They were transformed into fashionable accessories. Shakira was conscious that her fame came from belly-dancing in an appearance that was stolen from an oppressed people 200 years before. It’s unlikely. 

It is a similar kind of time-flattening effect that’s happening to the Y2K aesthetic, which isn’t necessarily tethered to all the technological panic at the turn of the millennium – which is what the acronym stands for – but any and all of the looks that appeared in the early 2000s. This timewarp is compounded by the fact that most of the outfits being rediscovered are taken from music videos and red carpets. Fatigued with rhinestoned McBling costumes, there is a cultural appetite for what “regular” people were actually wearing during the aughts, hence all those people on TikTok They are looking for boho belts made from Salamon trainers and crocheted balclavas. It means the normie – and all her concho belts and rustic skirts – is becoming a belated protagonist in the permafrosted 00s revival.