by Mollie Jones (’27) | February 2, 2024
Hair bows, a popular twenty-first-century symbol of femininity, have not always been associated with sophistication and youth. Bows have existed for much of human history, dating back to the Early Dynastic Illa, when Sumerian men and women wore gilded ribbons to keep their hair back; the Metropolitan Museum of Art holds evidence to this as they display a set of these gold ribbons in their jewelry collection. In the Victorian times, both young girls and boys wore small bows in order to keep ringlets of hair out of their faces. Straying away from its functional purpose, the bow has now become inseparable from the female image over time. The bows of today are not simply a fashion accessory, but a statement.
Decades after the Victorian Era, bows became an emblem for the relationship status of teenage girls. In the 1940s, young women would place hair bows atop their heads if they were looking for a relationship, or wear the bows on the back if they were not looking for a partner. Aside from the bow’s placement, its color also carried significance in the expression of 1940s women. According to the May 1944 edition of LIFE Magazine, “A yellow ribbon is the symbol of a man-hater. A white ribbon is a signal to the boys to lay off…”
Throughout the 1980s the bow arrived on the punk scene, as famous pop star Madonna began pairing the accessory with chunky hoops, tousled hair, bright eyeshadow, and fishnets. Bows no longer appeared in their innocent traditional fashion; they had taken on an additional meaning during this new decade. In the early 2000s, TV shows such as Gossip Girl featured their characters sporting hair bows as a sign of wealth, prominence, and abundance, contributing to the “old money” aesthetic of the bow. This perhaps was a nod to the aristocrats of the 1700s, while simultaneously being a pivotal shift in how we view bows today.
In 2023, bows came back once more but very differently than they had in the past. They no longer held sexual meaning, were not a status symbol, and were not solely used for functionality. Instead, they were used by women to claim their femininity in subtle ways–the bow being a large catalyst for this trend. Influential artists such as Sabrina Carpenter and Lana del Rey wore hair bows on tour and have made it part of their personal brands. Pop star Olivia Rodrigo wrote hit song “Lacy,” singing, “Like ribbons in your hair my stomach’s all in knots.” Similarly, social media trends featuring the “coquettification” of objects, which has over 207,000 posts on TikTok, and the coquette and old money aesthetics easily made the top trends of the year.
In today’s era, women of all ages sport bows, embracing femininity with open arms, liberating themselves from the many who tell us to reject our feminine attributes. In the new year, let us continue to explore girlhood and wear our bows proudly.
