When Emily in Paris debuted its season four trailer back in June, fans of this most esoteric television programme baulked. Not because the protagonist (a fashion PR) had somehow managed to insert herself into one of her client’s advertising campaigns, but because she wore a Jacquemus bolero in one of the scenes. The social media response was an emphatic “NO”, “Hideous” and “Been there, done that, no need to revisit”.
Boleros – less a cardigan and more a pair of disembodied sleeves – had, of course, been enjoying a renaissance for some time. Bella Hadid styled them with Ed Hardy T-shirts, low-slung Von Dutch jeans and rimless Chanel sunnies while moonlighting as @princesspeach310 on Depop; former Disney tween Olivia Rodrigo wore crocheted iterations with camouflage miniskirts when rebranding as a pop-punk artist; and Zara was selling whatever the hell this was. Fast forward to 2025 and, like all nostalgia-driven trends, the bolero now seems to have crystallised into fashion vernacular.
Take, for example, Kaia Gerber, who was yesterday afternoon strolling through Los Angles in a beige shrug with stretch gym separates, a Paloma Wool Philana bag and bug-eyed Thistles glasses that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Kate Moss’s face in 2004. This post-pilates look – matcha very much in hand – reminded me of the wrapped ballet cardigans that Maximilian Davis presented alongside leggings, leotards and ribboned pumps as part of his spring/summer 2025 collection at Ferragamo. And weren’t Kiko Kostadinov’s autumn/winter 2025 models shrugged in their own little boleros? The wisened philosophers were right: those who do not learn from history are truly doomed to repeat it.
