Leopard prints are more than a fashion choice, they’re an ethos

Jenna Clarke plunged into the world and ethos of her adored, feisty (and possibly feline) grandmother.

Anyone can wear leopard print clothes, but it’s an attitude too.

JENNA CLARKE

3 min read

12:00AMJanuary 13, 2023.

Updated 9:09AMJanuary 13, 2023

My grandmothers were mad for prints. One was obsessed with florals. She, coincidentally, was named after a flower and cast the Chelsea Flower Show in the shade with her multitude of paisley capris and floaty summer frocks. Violet was stoic, serene and as harmonious as a soft breeze wafting through jasmine in early summer.

The other was potentially feline: nocturnal and as tough as nails. Marie stood five foot nothing and existed, for most of my youth, on Longbeach cigarettes and sickly sweet coffee at all hours of the day and night. Sleep was overrated, food didn’t interest her all that much. Elnett was her signature scent. She wore leopard print like armour, like Edie Sedgwick but with less privilege and more purpose.

She had been wearing her most memorable outfit, which boasted both prints and spots – and four-inch heels – the night she gave birth to my mother. That day had started like every other, she used to recall. A 12-hour shift as a nurse, folding bed corners with military precision, comforting patients and sassing Matron. Ignoring the cramps, she got changed and went dancing. It was Saturday night after all. Kicks, she knew how to get them.

It was 1960, when women were beginning to abandon the pillbox hat and adopt the Pill, but that was too late for my grandmother. She embraced single motherhood roaring, subtly: a leopard print lover doesn’t change her spots. She quietly succeeded, despite the world being against her “situation”.

It was while we were fossicking around in her overstuffed closet after midnight during one of my regular weekend sleepovers, when I was nine or 10, with her favourite music blaring (Dire Straits, Doris Day and Juice Newton on vinyl), that I fell in love at first sight – with her leopard print shoes. Clearly, the attraction was etched into my DNA.

The textured velvet pumps were synthetic for sure, with that toe shape that gives ballerinas bunions, and a heel so sharp the fashion police (as well as the actual cops) would be well within their rights to charge the wearer for openly carrying a weapon.

Love at first sight with leopard print shoes.

Marie, of course, floated around in these high-stacked torture devices as if walking on air, like a female Fred Astaire, spreading joy and fun wherever she went. Effortlessly charming, and a natural flirt, she collected admirers and compliments like coupons, but always landed on her well-shod feet.

I lost touch with those heels when she retired them to Vinnies after osteoporosis forced the switch to more sensible footwear, but the meaning of her leopard print shoes – that marker of her individuality and distinctive style – remained.

Marie was a magnet, and a human binding agent. Another of my lasting memories, from when I was about 12, is of her singing and dancing till dawn in the caravan she lived in, which she made feel like a castle. There, I witnessed the diverse characters pulled into her orbit: at any given time there would be the wealthy, the sick, the religious, the damned and downcast sitting around her kitchen table, an ensemble cast that made Days Of Our Lives look like the Brady Bunch.

She comforted, consoled and counselled (often unsolicited) friends, family and virtual strangers who felt compelled to open up to her, entertaining them for hours with hot coffee and a warm heart. Just like those damn leopard print shoes: irresistible. To borrow from Taylor Swift, Marie was someone who lived “in screaming colour”.

Christian Dior, who popularised leopard print, said of it in 1947: “If you are fair and sweet. Don’t wear it.” Yet, anyone can pull it off, from Jackie Kennedy in her Oleg Cassini coat to The Nanny’s Fran Drescher in tiny designer Versace mini skirts, to the stars of Real Housewives. Dynasty’s Alexis Carrington had an extensive wardrobe, but it was a number of leopard print basics that Joan Collins kept for herself.

Seshat, the Egyptian goddess of wisdom, was shown clad in leopard skins. Dionysus, the Greek god of wine, was associated with the leopard, and was depicted wearing the fur. Modern royalty, even at its most British and demure, dabbled in the odd bold coat or animal-inspired dress: the late Queen did, and Catherine wore it while pregnant.

From Joan Crawford to Joan Collins, Shania Twain to the Spice Girls, Anna Wintour to Carole Baskin, Anne Bancroft to Azzedine Alaï, the leopard print is the UN of fashion: not only democratic, but also “neutral”, for the way it can be paired with most colours and textures.

“Leopard motifs, and feline imagery in general, have been used to signify power, independence and confidence for centuries,” Jo Weldon wrote in her book, Fierce: The History of Leopard Print. “Leopards have long been seen as fierce, very resilient animals. People feel a primordial connection with them.”

And with the people who not only wear the print but embody its unique, captivating spirit. I aspire to live up to my pedigree – of panache and pluck.

Jenna Clarke is an associate editor of The Australian