Joe Exotic - Tiger King and Fashion Icon

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From half of Two-Face’s suit in Batman Forever, to Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, animal print has always been an iconic part of fashion. Whether its to represent the bad girl of the movie, or to demonstrate the financial position of high society women, we see animal print, and make assumptions about the person wearing it.

So its lucky we have so few assumptions to make about Joe Exotic, given exactly how much information we have about the now famous tiger keeper. With his pink sequinned shirt, now available for just $650 dollars on eBay, and his ‘Here Kitty Kitty’ priest get up, theres no denying that Joe Exotic is someone who uses fashion to express themselves.

That’s without even considering his quick thinking to throw on an EMT jacket when one of his keepers was bitten by a tiger, or his pink polyamorous wedding.

Apparently though, the tiger king is now inspiring fashion for the masses, despite currently being in jail. Retail analysts have reported a spike in sales of animal-print pieces, and the Netflix documentary is likely to blame.

Animal print has never exactly been out of style, the majority of fashion bloggers these days consider it to be a neutral, just like black, white, or beige. The type worn by Joe certainly can’t be considered in the same vein though, what with all the sequins, and gaudy colours.

With this trend on the rise due to the eccentric zoo owner, is there a chance we’re going to see a similar array of bright colours and sparkles in shops? Perhaps the general public may be best off leaving the more avant-garde options to the runways, but theres nothing currently hinting at another decline in how much we all love the standard leopard and tiger print thats flying off shelves.