Both fulfil basically the same aesthetic need – twee, whimsical, cute, prim – but a bow is more like a finishing flourish than the main event that a collar can be. A bow can be as dainty or as obnoxious as you like, though I prefer the latter: the hyper ‘girly’ detail is slightly ridiculous, embrace that.

My wedding dress featured a big bow, a key detail when designing my ‘dream dress’ (it was oversized, black and perfect), and today I own several bow barrettes from the delightful Caitlin Snell. To quote myself (because I still stand by this): “Like oversized collars, ruffles and sickly sweet shades of pink, I think of oversized hair bows as an unapologetic subversion of the aesthetics of femininity that are usually dismissed as 'silly' and frivolous”.

Tied up: Michaela Jaé Rodriguez in Balmain at the 2023 Golden Globes, Samantha Pleet, Batsheva.

There is, of course, the question of infantilsation; a very rational point that I’ve wrestled with when determining my own personal style over the years. But there’s a reason that one of my favourite Miuccia Prada lines is this: ‘You can wear the most powerful dress and not be powerful. You can dress like a stupid little girl and be super-powerful.’

Miuccia has regularly explored – and subverted – the sickly sweet aesthetic and traditions of femininity in her collections for both Prada and Miu Miu. The latest version of this is the ‘coquette’ aesthetic that’s all over TikTok: pastels, ribbons, lace, flowers, hearts (coquette actually means flirtatious woman).

It’s also what Rebecca Jennings described ingeniously in 2016 as the “Fancy Little Bitch aesthetic”: “a trope that's supposed to warn children against giving in to their most stereotypically girlish impulses”. She wrote that these fancy but charming brats – think Veruca Salt, or Marie from The Aristocats (yes, an animated cat; don’t overthink it babes) – usually would dress in a way that combined “traditional notions of old money with maximalist femininity”.

If you think that that sounds a bit like Lana Del Rey, then you’d be right. The musician wears a Forever 21 hair bow scrunchie on the cover of her new album Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd, and “that's so lana del rey vinyl,” has become an #extremelyonline comment for a certain type of darkly girly aesthetic (that yes, includes bows).

Bow down: Adwoa Aboah in Tory Burch at the 2022 Met Gala, Wallice wearing Caitlin Snell hair bows supporting The 1975 in Auckland, Loewe.

Expect to see plenty of extravagant versions at this year’s Met Gala, honouring the career of Karl Lagerfeld and sponsored by Chanel – a brand that has made black bows a signature, often worn by its founder Coco.

They are generally considered to be ‘chic’, but sweet bows are also part tradition, part nostalgia, part toyish charm. Think of Margot Robbie’s Barbie’s bow-adorned pink gingham dress/swimsuit in the poster and trailer (I bet there are bows a plenty in Greta Gerwig’s subversive take on the doll) or the hair ribbons of 1960s darlings like Anna Karina in Une Femme est une Femme and Catherine Deneuve in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.

At Valentino’s Fall 2023 show in March they appeared in the form of a dress featuring a lattice-work of red bowties, worn over a buttoned up shirt and tie (designer Pierpaolo Piccioli was deconstructing the traditional idea of black tie), while Acne, a brand not exactly known for its whimsy, sent out tops made of slightly wonky pastel bows ‘trapped’ between lace and tulle, inspired by the kitsch of weddings.

Simone Rocha regularly features bows and ribbons in her collections as a way to convey her signature gothic romance – recently they appeared on lace dresses, and on the literal faces of her models (the red ribbons were, according to Vogue, “meant to represent blood traditionally daubed on children’s faces to ward off ill spirits and bad luck”).

Take a bow: Acne Studios, Gloria, Jessica Renee Williams in Simone Rocha.

But it is New York-based designer Sandy Liang – “Supreme for the downtown coquette” – who has made the bow motif her own. She’s released bow-heavy, toy-like accessories inspired by “princess energy, ballet bows, Sailor Moon and a little bit of mystery”, and at her recent show at New York Fashion Week featured bows on frothy party dresses and sportswear – but most noticeably, tiny ribbon bows covered some of her models’ hair (and in the bellybutton of one model).

Much like all of these bows, Liang’s appeal lies in nostalgia and the simple pleasures of girlhood. “Wearing Sandy Liang isn’t about putting on an oversized hair bow and a taffeta drop waist skirt, and becoming someone else. It’s about becoming who you’ve been, a child just discovering pink or the simple pleasure of tying a ribbon onto a strand of hair,” wrote Harper’s Bazaar in February. “Her pieces feel like admission tickets to a world of delicate girliness, free of the crushing weight of actually being a girl in this world.”

But when I think bows, I immediately think of the 1980s extravagance of designer Christian Lacroix. His designs were powerful, over the top, and lots of fun: polka dots, taffeta, bustles, colour, bows. Alexander Fury described Lacroix’s designs as “lavish and loud, and a little ludicrous” – just like a big ass bow.