My fashion-lovers,

What’s do you think of the paisley-print trend?

Famous designers, such as Givenchy, Jil Sander, Stella McCartney, Isabel Marant, Moschino, Mulberry and many others, incorporated this trend in their most recent collections.  Givenchy’s recent designs, which feature a combination of paisley prints and black-and-white geometrical patterns have been endorsed by numerous celebrities, including Nicole Richie, who is famous for her haute bohemian style. Click here to get her look for less.

Here are a few things you might want to know about this exotic print:

• Etro, an Italian fashion house, used the paisley print to develop its first collection in 1981. Since then, paisley has became the brand’s signature print.
• “Paisley” is an English term for a design that uses the boteh, a droplet-shaped vegetable motif that originated India and Persia. The name derives from the town Paisley, in central Scotland, which is a center of textiles where paisley-printed designs were produced.
• The pattern is sometimes called “Persian pickles” by American traditionalists or Welsh pears” in the Welsh textile industry.
• Paisley designs became extremely popular in the West in the 18th and 19th centuries, following imports of post-Mughal types of the design from British India, particularly in the form of Kashmir shawls, and were then copied locally.
• The Kashmir Paisley shawl became the symbol of love and the status symbol for affluent French, Russian and British women looking to highlight their beauty and taste for timeless fashion and art.
• In late 1960s, the years known as summers of love, with festivals, the androgynous hippie look was a strong force on ladies’ clothing styles.  Paisley prints, headbands, tie-dyed shirts, braless looks and bell-bottomed jeans were very popular at that time.
• Paisley prints are still popular in Iran and South and Central Asian countries.  Particularly in Iran and Uzbekistan, its use goes beyond clothing― paintings, home décor, jewelry, frescoes, garden landscaping, pottery, etc.

An artist, dreamer, traveler or a woman who appreciates cultural diversity pulls off this look the best.  If you simply appreciate high fashion designs, you have to have at least one piece from Etro. Find a silk paisley foulard― a great versatile accessory,  which can be worn as a headband, an accessory around your neck or decoration for your favorite purse.

What are your thoughts on this trend? Are you on board with paisley prints?