Natural Hide: Jordan Betten
Lenny Kravitz, Madonna, and Gisele Bündchen all own his sexy, handcrafted Lost Art leather pants, but despite the A-listers who've passed through his far West Chelsea studio, the designer and artist remains as groovy and genuinely down-to-earth as they come. His mantra? "I'm all about happy." Judging from the erotic paintings he displayed at his first solo show last November, we'd say he's very happy indeed.
Voodoo Child: Natasha Khan
Bat for Lashes' Natasha Khan has been described as "a powerhouse under her billowy sleeves." And though the Anglo-Pakistani songbird's voice is often compared to Björk's, her shaman-chic look is all her own. A self-confessed flower child, Khan told The Guardian she's "obsessed with Woodstock and running through the California forests." She's similarly fixated with face paint, feathers, horses, and headbands. Eat your heart out, Arden Wohl.
The Green Queen: Josie Maran
Yes, Josie Maran once appeared in a Backstreet Boys video and not that long ago was a (short-lived) contestant on Dancing With the Stars. Still, the model more than earned her hippie cred when she launched an eponymous line of natural cosmetics in 2007 and gave birth to daughter Rumi Joon at home in her garden. "My philosophy is luxury with a conscience. We don't have to sacrifice style, like a great pair of high heels [or a paraben-free, jojoba oil-packed mascara], to be eco-friendly."
Wave Rider: Tracy Feith
Michelle Obama and Target made Tracy Feith a household name this year (after a mere two-plus decades in the business). But you're still more likely to find the "Hamptons meets hippie" designer in Montauk building a teepee than working the New York City scene. (He erected and auctioned off the structure at the trendy Surf Lodge to raise money to restore the town's skate park.) How does Feith feel about being dubbed a bohemian designer? "I guess that's me, but I never set out to be something so easily labeled. I just gravitate toward a certain lifestyle and aesthetic and those influences show up in my clothes."
Gypsy Woman: Irene Neuwirth
"I don't think of myself as a hippie, more of a free spirit," says Irene Neuwirth, the California-based jewelry designer whose raw yet refined baubles garnered her a CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund nomination last year. How's this for free-spirited? She swims in the ocean every morning and rides her skateboard to work.
Maui Wowee: David LaChapelle
Harlow isn't fashion's only would-be farmer. "I always used to pray for a cabin in the woods with vegetarian food and a place to make my art," David LaChapelle told The Wall Street Journal. The Warhol protégé turned surrealist fashion photographer has made his wish come true in a fittingly radical way, turning an 18-acre former nudist colony on Maui into a solar-powered organic farm complete with a pink Mercedes that runs on leftover cooking oil. And although he's focused less on commercial work than fine art photography these days, he hasn't shunned the fabulous and freaky crowd that he's been documenting in glossy magazine spreads for decades; Lady Gaga and Daphne Guinness have been recent guests.
Peacemaker: Shalom HarlowShalom Harlow, sheep farmer? "We'll see…I might end up there in a few years," she once told Vogue. It wouldn't be a complete surprise. The model—who was plucked from the wilds of Ontario at 16 and comes from hippie roots (her name, after all, means peace)—has aligned herself strongly with the eco movement, becoming a face of Lancôme's carbon-neutral campaign and partnering with Carbonfund.org.
The Furry Guy Who Dated Natalie Portman: Devendra Banhart
Karl Lagerfeld enlisted the eyeliner-wearing, grizzly bearded freak-folk singer Devendra Banhart to perform live at Chanel's 2006 pre-fall show in New York, and despite his casual approach to personal grooming, he's been a fashion darling ever since. He's palled around with Donatella Versace and Irina Lazareanu, dated Natalie Portman, and turned up, most recently, at a Phillip Lim party in L.A. In truth, it looks like he took a shower before he put on a crisp, clean shirt for that shindig, but that doesn't mean there still isn't a purple crushed-velvet jacket smelling of patchouli hanging in the back of his closet.
Hunter-Gatherer: Matthew Williamson
The "carnival dress" in Matthew Williamson's Central Saint Martins thesis show was made from discarded scraps he rescued from the floor as a student intern at Zandra Rhodes' studio. After graduation, he trekked through Guatemala and Mexico instead of going to work for a big fashion corporation. Then there's his Bali-by-way-of-Goa-by-way-of-Ibiza sensibilities. No wonder boho types like Helena Christensen, Daria Werbowy, and Sienna Miller are fans.
The Man With Kaleidoscope Eyes: Mark Borthwick
Go to a Mark Borthwick photography show at the Paris booktore Ofr or at Brooklyn's The Journal Gallery, and you're just as likely to find yourself sitting on the floor surrounded by lilies and candles, listening to him strum his guitar and read his own poetry, as you are to see his fashion images on the gallery walls. If you're really lucky, he'll be cooking his raw vegetable lasagna, leaf-wrapped chicken, and chocolate ginger bark with green tea powder, too. Borthwick mixes mediums the way some fashion types mix drinks—all in an effort, he says, "to send out the good vibes." Or to put it another way: "I'm a peaceful fellow. I encourage bringing joy into my daily life and want to share that with other people." The photographer, who accessorizes his shaggy hair and beard with a perpetually unbuttoned-to-there shirt and love beads, will be doing plenty more cross-pollinating this fall. That's when a trio of new books cataloging his dreamy, often sun-dappled work is scheduled to be published.
Nouveau Bohemian: Alice Temperley
Alice Temperley grew up in the "middle of nowhere," as she says, on a cider farm in Somerset, England, and so loved anything sparkly, she earned herself the nickname Magpie. She's traded in the beaded fairy dresses with which she made her name in the early oughties for a leaner and meaner, more au courant aesthetic, but her Fall collection still has plenty of shiny bits. Once a boho, always a boho. In June, Temperley was spotted knocking around the Glastonbury Festival in the family cider bus.
Shoe Giver in Chief: Blake Mycoskie
He's an entrepreneur who's launched five businesses since graduating from college, one of which he sold to Clear Channel, so what's Blake Mycoskie doing in this story? Yes, he lives on a sailboat in Marina del Rey, but what qualifies him isn't his lifestyle, it's his latest and most famous launch, TOMS Shoes. Myckosie and his staff of 53 have given away one pair of canvas-topped, flip-flop-soled, Argentine-style alpargatas to needy children around the world for each pair he sells at Urban Outfitters, Nordstrom, or online at www.tomsshoes.com. The current tally is 150,000 pairs, and they're on track to give away 300,000 more by the end of the year. "It's an anti-establishment
Foxy Lady: Angela Lindvall
She's presumably the only Victoria's Secret model alive who can have a serious discussion about composting. A corn-fed, golden-locked Midwesterner turned Cali girl, Angela Lindvall doesn't just look like a sun-kissed hippie (see David Mushegain's shoot in July's British Vogue), she talks and walks like one as well. She established the Collage Foundation, an organization to promote green awareness among young people, and she's also landed a spot on Adrian Grenier's show Alter Eco. "I don't label myself a hippie," says Lindvall, "but I'm all about improving our world from both an environmental perspective and by reaching higher realms of consciousness." Groovy.
from style.com