Leopard print claws back as 2024’s ‘It’ trend — how to rock it your way

Fashion & Beauty

By Brooke Kato

The cat’s outta the bag: leopard print is back and better than ever.

Once thought of as gaudy, the divisive yet chic animal print is predicted to be this year’s “It” trend.

“Leopard print makes me feel so confident, fabulous, sexy and glamorous,” New York City fashion content creator Sophie Cohen, 25, told The Post. “I feel like sometimes wearing leopard print can even make me feel like I’m playing a fun, fab character.

“I think it has this very punk rocker, like ’90s, indie sleaze vibe to it, that’s maybe a different girl or somebody with a different style that’s wearing it.”

The trend forecasters on “fashiontok” — some of whom have predicted a renaissance of indie sleaze, the early aughts party girl aesthetic — have declared leopard as “in” for 2024.

Creator Mandy Lee called the “Chloë Sevigny cool” print a “neutral,” while creators have flaunted leopard print pieces online.

In November, Adidas launched a collaboration with the label Wales Bonner, which included a limited edition pair of the viral Sambas in, you guessed it, leopard print. The collection, which is now sold out, quickly gained traction on TikTok.

Rihanna was spotted just this week in an oversized fur coat while traveling, and Emily Ratajkowski rang in the new year flaunting her supermodel good looks in a leopard print frock, perhaps heralding the second coming of the highly anticipated animal print.

Last spring, early devotee Jennifer Lopez was photographed draped head-to-toe in the print.

“What I love about leopard print is I feel like it can fit into so many different kinds of people’s style,” Cohen said.

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She believes the print, a longtime staple in her closet, is a “fun” way to spice up your look by way of a shoe, handbag or belt. No need to go buck-wild in outrageously ostentatious faux fur coats, for example — unless that’s your MO.

“My motto with fashion has always been, like, just wear what makes you happy, just have fun with it, and I feel like leopard print is a fun trend.”

If done right, it’s effortlessly chic — but done wrong can be woefully tacky. (See: Janice on “Friends” or the entire ensemble of “Jersey Shore.”)

Yet, despite its on-screen reputation as somewhat trashy, leopard has adorned the shoulders of many greats — Jackie Onassis, Princess Diana and Elizabeth Taylor, to name a few, with the powerful print demanding attention, much like their presence.

It is both deviously playful yet powerfully debonair, with a femme fatale je ne sais quoi that emboldens the wearer.

“It’s very girly and glamorous, and I think also — with this whole trend that we’ve seen like the year of the girl, and the bows on everything, and girl dinner and girl math — leopard print does have that girliness to it,” Cohen told The Post.

In 2024, there will be no shortage of leopard print, according to NYC stylist Beverly Nguyen, who predicts we’ll be seeing more of the kitty couture in conjunction with a resurgence of ’80s fashion.

The print is most commonly seen “during times of leisure, transitions, and often more conservatively versus to make a statement,” she added, perhaps indicative of how the year will unfold.

“Leopard has been and will continue to be timeless,” Nguyen, the founder of BEVERLY’S, told The Post in a statement.

Unlike the ebb and flow of micro trends — which Cohen says she’s “sick of” — it seems the controversial print is clawing back into the mainstream “slowly but surely,” she said, detractors be damned.

“Because people have thought that it could be a little gaudy or a little bit cheesy, there’s kind of a fun moment about it where it’s, like, you’re almost embracing that when you wear it,” explained Cohen, whose overflowing closet is in no short supply of leopard print pieces.

To put it simply, Nguyen said: “People want to see it!”