Indie Sleaze Goes High Fashion?

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Since last year’s revival of the Balenciaga City Bag, there have been murmurs about the return of “indie sleaze,” the 2020s name for the sexy-yet-grungy aesthetic that dominated the early 2000s. It was the anti-bubble-gum pop-princess vibe of the naughties—unbrushed hair beneath a fedora, oversized graphic tees with micro-minis and layers of beaded necklaces, loafers and chunky socks or tights with a run in them, and of course, the pièce de résistance: skinny jeans. Some might say that the trend was a defiant response to the volatile tabloid culture of the time, a means of flipping the bird to the paparazzi whose entire livelihood was dependent on a celebrity being out and about and looking a hot mess. The queens of indie sleaze’s glory days, like Alexa Chung, Kate Moss, and Sky Ferreira, made being a little messy look cool.

Today, in the age of undetectable filler and constant surveillance, the aesthetic seems to be coming back into fashion again. Recently a new legion of fans and designers have reimagined the look for a new era, one in which internet-educated teens flaunt their knowledge of designer clothing and designers like Donatella Versace and Anna Sui mine Gen-Z shopping trends for inspiration for their latest collections. In this new reiteration, the look is still punk, but a tad more polished. Timothee Chalamet’s most recent press run for A Complete Unknown saw him wear skinny jeans from Martine Rose and Chrome Hearts. Brand of the moment Miu Miu has been selling $1220 skinny jeans post its Spring 2025 show. McQueen’s Seán McGirr brought back the house’s iconic skull print scarf (a must-have for hipsters back in the day), and Valentino debuted a collaboration with Vans on the runway in Paris, with creative director Alessandro Michele even sporting the shoes in his post-show press conference.

The kids cataloging these pieces on TikTok never set foot into American Apparel or taught themselves to customize their own Tumblr pages, but they might have listened to Arctic Monkeys AM or thrifted a pair of those ultra-skinny jeans. Raving has made somewhat of a comeback, too, though even Cobra Snake isn’t partying like he used to.

With consumption of social media and trends at an all-time high, indie sleaze isn’t, well, indie anymore, and the new iterations of the trend reflect as much. The number of teenagers cutting up fashion magazines has decreased alongside the number of print magazines themselves, and broody Jenny Humphrey from Gossip Girl is now less of an outcast fashionista than a meme on TikTok. Back then, celebs embraced invasive paparazzi by flaunting designer bags alongside eyebags, holding up cardboard signs, and even performing parkour tricks (the latter of which later turned out to be an ad for Nike). Today, there are far fewer celebrities photographed stumbling out of the club than there are stars using paparazzi for their own spon-con. At least in the 2010s, the caught-me-off-guard concept felt real—like something teens could idolize and re-blog alongside film photos of Sky Ferreira.

Sleaze, however, is very much still around, appearing in the form of heavy chains, smudged eyeliner, and lower-than-low-slung bumster pants. Throw a dusty vintage fur or worn leather jacket over a slip or beaten-up shirt and you’ve got the vibe down. This look never left certain parts of Brooklyn, naturally, but now it’s appeared rebirthed and refined on the runways. Flannel, a mainstay of underground fashion, took on a more polished air at Isabel Marant, and there were grommets galore at Ludovic de Saint Sernin (calling back to the studded belts you would get at Hot Topic). Overall, indie sleaze was always about breaking the rules, but the new version is perhaps a bit less wild, with more buy-in from the fashion industry. Labels and ‘it’ items were definitely a thing back then, but any 2000s scenester would swear that how you styled everything was more important than who or what you were wearing. (At the very least, that sentiment was more believable then than it is now. Did Timothée Chalamet wear a McQueen skull scarf out of his own free will, or was that choice dictated to him by a stylist or publicist?).

Photo credit: Courtesy of Launchmetrics.com/spotlight

But the originality of the aesthetic—which itself borrowed heavily from the rebelliousness of punk—is likely what we’re craving most. Charli XCX, maybe the pop culture figure most responsible for taking indie sleaze into its next evolution, blew up last year with her vulnerable odes to messy party girls. Even Demna’s Balenciaga achieved virality over and over again thanks to its ability to laugh at itself—and now he’s likely going to bring that satirical energy to Gucci.

It’s a reminder that regardless of era, real creativity happens when we take risks. Truly, what is indie sleaze if not breaking fashion rules and making them your own?

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