Sienna Miller is, undoubtedly, one of the most famous fashion icons of the Noughties, alongside fellow Brits Kate Moss and Alexa Chung.
The ‘Sienna effect’ has seen a legion of disciples experimenting with everything from coin-studded belts and prairie skirts, to denim waistcoats, Ugg boots and wide-brimmed floppy hats.
But while the world might have long dubbed Miller a ‘boho’ style queen, ELLE UK’s May cover star tells us that only now does she approve of the term.
‘I always kind of rebel against a label, but now I’ve accepted it – I was a boho something,’ she admits during her It’s A Mood video, which sees the actor chart her most memorable fashion looks over the last two decades.
‘You know what I hate? I hate an abbreviated word. It’s like "just say bohemian", but boho annoys me, like a jegging or something… I think in my soul, [boho is] probably about as true to myself as I am.’
Later in the video, the Anatomy of a Scandal star recalls wearing a Matthew Williamson Grecian green gown to the Oscars 2004, and a rather disastrous morning involving a hangover and a makeover.
‘I remember a friend had come in in the morning, jumped on me in the bed, and landed on my ankle that had twisted. It was so painful and like a balloon,’ she remembers.
The actor continues, noting that during her 'getting ready' process her hairdresser had told her that he wanted to create a Medusa-like look. On viewing the final look, she says: ‘I literally had brown tendrils and I was like ‘Sh*t, we have to fix this”. So we tied it back and it went a bit Princess Anne. I think it’s quite puffy.’
As for her hairstyle, which is a regular Team ELLE source of inspiration at the hair salon given her effortless, tousled curls, Miller notes that she’s not ‘particularly’ attached to her blonde hair, and would consider dyeing it brown again.
‘I’ve shaved half of it off, I’ve cut fringes – I perpetually cut a fringe and then resent it after a week,’ she jokes. ‘I’ve always been drawn to messy, undone hair, I think it’s quite a London-y thing, and it’s not out of anything other than sheer laziness, and an absolute inability to do my own hair. I think: don’t brush it, don’t condition it, and just let it be ratty and scruffy.’
In recent years the mother-of-one has walked the red carpet in the likes of a Gucci custom lace column dress to the Met Gala 2021, and an Yves Saint Laurent beige chiffon lizard-print gown, with a crystal-studded bodice to the 2009 G.I. Joe: The Rise Of The Cobra Los Angeles screening.
However, as she looks back at her style in the early days of her career (featuring the likes of a skirt worn as a dress, belts worn around the bust, and necklaces as headbands), Miller says she ‘didn’t care what anyone thought’ in her early twenties.
‘I think that that’s probably [what] resonated, and what was great about it and also, in moments, disastrous,’ she explains, later explaining that for press events she now leans on the expertise of celebrity stylist Kate Young, whose clients also include Dakota Johnson and Margot Robbie.
‘Young people now have stylists and it’s very curated. I was let loose in a candy shop therefore there [was] a sense of individuality, which I like,' she remembers fondly.
We couldn’t agree more, Miller.
Watch Sienna Miller’s It’s A Mood video at the top of this article and read her cover profile here.
Every One Of Sienna Miller's Beautiful Boho Looks
