Animal prints such as leopard skin patterns were long considered tasteless by many, but they have been back in fashion for some time.

Today, pedestrian zones and supermarkets sometimes feel like a zoo or a savannah—leopard skin patterns are everywhere: on blouses, leggings, pants, skirts, dresses, jackets, and shoes. Animal prints are in. The term "leopard" shouldn't always be taken literally; sometimes it might also be cheetah, jaguar, ocelot, tiger—or even giraffe or zebra.

We should also not interpret the term "prints" too narrowly here, as it does not only refer to prints, but to the pattern itself - regardless of whether it is printed on fabric, woven as a patterned surface, knotted, painted or produced in any other way.

The spectrum of people wearing leopard prints and the like ranges from the US First Lady at an awards gala to erotic model Micaela Schäfer, from Hollywood stars at film press conferences to northern German grooms in leopard suits saying "I do." The leopard look was recently even the dress code at a "leopard party" in a Berlin rooftop club.

In recent years, animal prints have also been added to bags, pillows, tableware, and other accessories. This was once considered indecent because it was reminiscent of the uncultured colonial hunting trophies.

Anna Sophie Müller, lecturer for textiles and fashion at the European University of Flensburg, takes an ambivalent view of the leopard print look. "Leopard prints have never completely disappeared from fashion. Animals are fascinating. But the codes, the attributions of meaning, are changing enormously."

"I thought about a year ago: leopard print is totally 'in,' I need that now," says a woman in her mid-sixties in Berlin. "So I bought a blouse and a raincoat. I used to think the leopard print look was impossible. And this blouse was also a complete waste of time, because even today I still feel like Aunt Käthe in it in the early '60s. Anyone who wore leopard print back then was definitely not wild."

Now, animal print is suddenly all the rage, even among young people. "I also think the rain jacket, a blouson with a hood, is really cool because the combination is kind of quirky," says the woman from Berlin. "I only like these prints when they're used in small doses, when they're combined well with solid-colored items—so, in a way, it's only original as a break."

A woman in her mid-forties from Mülheim an der Ruhr feels similarly: "I think it often comes across as cheap, or it's made up of people who would look more authentic with other patterns. Personally, I prefer floral patterns. They're colorful and put you in a good mood."

The fact that leopard print is associated with terms like "sexy" but also "trashy" is due to the fact that it has often been worn by sensual and seductive characters in films, writes the women's magazine "Glamour." "Over the past decades, fashion brands have repeatedly attempted to free animal print from its seductive or "trashy" image." Among them have been Scottish fashion designer Christopher Kane and former Gucci designer Alessandro Michele.

In midsummer 2024, the weekly newspaper "Die Zeit" opined that all animal prints were surrounded by a nostalgic haze: "Colonial arrogance of bygone eras, when dead wild animals or trophies were brought in from Africa and Asia." But they also usually seemed ironic: "A blouson with a leopard-print pattern flirts with the wickedness of 1960s and 1970s fashion, its political incorrectness regarding materials and place of origin."

That's by no means all that the leopard look can stand for these days, says textile scientist Müller: "It can be completely contradictory and seem almost paradoxical: This pattern once stood for colonial achievements, and in the post-colonial era it stands for the exact opposite; it once stood for exoticism, luxury, and power, and now for vegan alternatives, for example, when it is worn only as faux fur for animal welfare."

Müller suspects that, in the current zeitgeist, animal prints could often be a kind of "anti-speciesist statement." What does that mean? Speciesism refers to something similar to racism or sexism, except that the discrimination here isn't based on skin color, hair, origin, or gender, but rather on the basis of species.

Accordingly, anti-speciesism is an ethical stance that opposes the discrimination of living beings based on their species. A new approach to fashion theory, then. Wearing leopard skin is philosophy.