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Bohemian style
Bohemian style (boho) is a fashion and interior aesthetic of natural fabrics, loose silhouettes, and layered craft, named for 19th-century French artists and revived by Chloé's 2024 collection.
Boho-chic
Boho-chic, also called bohemian chic, is a fashion style combining flowing silhouettes, vintage and folk-inspired pieces, and layered jewelry, reaching mass appeal in the early-to-mid 2000s.
Bolo tie
Bolo tie, also bola tie or cowboy tie: a cord necktie with a decorative slide and metal tips, emerging in the 1940s American Southwest, popularized by Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni silversmiths, and the official state neckwear of Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas.
Bolton
Bolton is a town in Greater Manchester, England, that became a major center of fine cotton spinning, and where Samuel Crompton invented the spinning mule in 1779.
Bondage (BDSM)
Bondage, the B in BDSM, is consensual adult restraint or restricted movement for sensory, psychological, or role-based purposes. Covers forms like shibari, safewords, Safe-Sane-Consensual norms, physical risks, history from Krafft-Ebing to Fifty Shades, and clinical guidance.
Bondage positions and methods
Bondage positions and methods are consensual restraint techniques within BDSM, using rope, cuffs, and shibari; defined by negotiation, safe words, and safety limits against nerve injury, positional asphyxia, and strangulation risks.
Bonded leather
Bonded leather, also called reconstituted leather, is a composite of shredded leather scraps bonded with polyurethane or latex onto a backing, typically 10-20% leather fiber, used in budget furniture and book covers, prone to peeling.
Bondo society art
Bondo society art is the masquerade art of the Sande (Bundu) society, an all-female initiation society in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and the Ivory Coast.
Bonnet (headgear)
Bonnet (headgear): a hat tied under the chin with ribbons, brim framing the face; dominant women's headwear of the 18th-19th centuries, also a Scottish male cap (glengarry, balmoral).
Bonwit Teller
Bonwit Teller, a luxury New York women's department store founded by Paul Bonwit and Edmund Teller in the 1890s, famed for its Art Deco Fifth Avenue flagship demolished in 1980 for Trump Tower, and defunct as a chain after 1990.
Boohoo
Boohoo is a British online fast-fashion retailer founded in Manchester in 2006, which grew through acquisitions including PrettyLittleThing and Debenhams and faced a 2020 Leicester factory pay scandal.
Boot worship
Boot worship (靴崇拜) is a consensual BDSM practice of ritualized reverence for boots, typically a dominant partner's, through kissing, licking, polishing or bootblacking, rooted in gay leather culture and distinct from footwear fetish or trampling.
Boro (ぼろ) (textile)
Boro (ぼろ) are historical Japanese textiles patched, mended, or pieced together by hand, made mainly by poor farmers in northern Japan from the eighteenth to early twentieth century.
Bottega Veneta
Bottega Veneta is an Italian luxury house founded in Vicenza in 1966 by Michele Taddei and Renzo Zengiaro, known for its logo-free handwoven Intrecciato leather (1975). Owned by Kering since 2001; 2025 revenue €1.7 billion; Creative Director Louise Trotter since January 2025.
Boulle work
Boulle work, also spelled Buhl work, is a style of marquetry in which designs cut from brass or pewter are set into tortoiseshell, named for the French cabinetmaker André-Charles Boulle.
Boutonnière
Boutonnière, also called buttonhole in British English, is a single flower or bud worn on the left lapel of a suit or tuxedo, traditionally through the lapel buttonhole; distinct from the fuller corsage.
Bow tie
Bow tie: neckwear tied in a bow with two loops, word attested 1887. Descends from the 17th-century cravat worn by Croatian mercenaries; white tie formality uses a white bow tie. Distinct from long neckties.
Bowes Museum
The Bowes Museum, founded by Joséphine and John Bowes in Barnard Castle, County Durham, opened in 1892; a French château-style Grade I listed museum holding over 58,000 objects including the Silver Swan automaton and works by Goya and Canaletto.
Bowler hat
Bowler hat, also called derby or Coke hat: hard felt hat with dome crown and curled brim, created 1849 by Lock & Co. for Edward Coke's gamekeepers; later City of London icon and traditional Aymara women's dress in Bolivia.
Bozo the Clown
Bozo the Clown is an American clown character created in 1946 by Alan Livingston for Capitol Records, voiced by Pinto Colvig, and franchised nationwide by Larry Harmon from 1956.
Bra
Bra (brassiere): undergarment covering and supporting the breasts. From Cadolle's 1869 corselet-gorge and Crosby's 1914 Backless Brassiere patent to cup sizing, the 1979 Jogbra, and modern fit research.
Bra size
Bra size: a two-part garment label combining a band number (underbust circumference) and a cup letter (bust-minus-band difference). Also called cup size. Originated with Camp's 1932 A–D letters and Warner's 1935 alphabet bra; sizing systems differ by country and fitting accuracy is contested.
Bracelet
Bracelet: ornamental band, chain, or rigid ring worn on the wrist; also called bangle (closed rigid circle), cuff (open rigid band), or chain. Defined by construction, sizing, and ancient origins from Varna gold to Egyptian flint bangles.
Braid
Braid: a narrow textile structure made by diagonally interlacing three or more strands of thread, wire, or fiber. One thread system unlike weaving; used for ropes, kumihimo cords, and composite reinforcement.
Brande Roderick
Brande Roderick (Brande Nicole Roderick) is an American actress, model, and director born 1974 in Novato, California; Playboy Playmate of the Year 2001 and Leigh Dyer on Baywatch 2000-2001, later a Celebrity Apprentice contestant and director of Wineville (2024).
Brandy Melville
Brandy Melville, Italian-founded teen fast fashion retailer run by CEO Stephan Marsan, sells most clothing in one XS/S size, markets only via Instagram, and faced the 2024 Brandy Hellville documentary and 2026 fitting-room closures.
Bread and Roses
Bread and Roses, also called the Lawrence Textile Strike of 1912, was a nine-week IWW-led walkout of about 20,000 immigrant textile workers in Lawrence, Massachusetts, triggered by a 32-cent pay cut; it won a 15 percent raise and overtime pay.
Breast binding
Breast (chest) binding compresses chest tissue for a flatter appearance, mainly via binders worn by transmasculine and nonbinary people. Key facts: 8-10 hour wear limits, documented risks (97.2% report some negative outcome) and mood benefits, and a history spanning China and West Africa.
Breeches
Breeches, also called knee breeches or britches, are men's bifurcated garments reaching the knee, standard male dress from the 16th to 18th centuries, replaced by trousers in the 1790s, surviving as riding breeches.
Breeching (boys)
Breeching, also called the breeching ceremony, was the European and American rite of passage in which a boy aged roughly two to eight exchanged infant dresses for his first breeches or trousers, marking entry into boyhood, from the sixteenth century until its decline by the 1920s.