silver booty shorts and the fountain of youth

the indie sleaze revival is bringing back grit, grime, and reveling in the trashy, but also economic distress and political apathy

A few years ago, I found myself drawn to pc music, hyperpop, and bloghouse, captivated by the irreverence, aggressive cuteness, and playful debauchery. Tired of taking everything so seriously, the ridiculous lyrics and overtly feminine sonics felt liberating in a way other music at the time didn’t. A little bit of it was due to residual bimboification from TikTok and a flirtation with anti-intellectualism I was phasing through, but mostly it was a desperation to live, feeling like all American lifestyles lead to hot girl death at 23. Relistening to Kesha’s trendsetting single ‘TiK ToK’ it was the spirit of the party that I so badly craved. Having come of age in the middle of the pandemic and waiting what felt like a lifetime to have my first legal drink, I was spiritually starving for the DJ to ‘blow my speakers up’, surrounded by a hundred strangers, to make out with a rando, and dance like a maniac with my posse. Indie sleaze is the fountain of youth I was promised. Over the next few years I moved to Madrid and developed a deeper appreciation for electronic music and techno, as well as the queer clubbing scene which afforded me a kind of freedom and euphoria on the dancefloor I had never experienced prior. For years now, I have been lurking and watching indie sleaze, seeing the fashion evolve first and later link up with this affinity for clubbing and for electropop. My birthday party theme this year was indie sleaze/scene, so I am clearly that way inclined. While I have been outwardly enthusiastic about this music and fashion coming into the limelight, inwardly I have been carrying many reservations, having gone to enough concerts, DJ sets, and afterparties of the ‘indie sleaze’ ilk to raise questions.

I remember when the Dare released their single, ‘Girls,’ in 2022 which I mistakenly believed was a re-upload of a Tumblr song when I first heard it. I loved the song instantly but didn’t imagine so many others would latch onto it as well. By the time Charli XCX’s sixth studio album ‘Brat’ came out, you couldn’t ignore the sleazy spirit in the air. Smoking ciggies, looking nonplussed, and partying all night was decidedly the mood. So what inspired this collective and sudden reinterest in the club, the backpedaling on our grammar school D.A.R.E. promise to resist drugs, and obsession with wearing sunglasses indoors? Hindsight is 20/20 and we often fail to notice glaring truths woven into our fashion and music fads as they unfold. In describing the content-mining fashion cycle which didn’t allow for McBling and Y2K trends to be fully digested before they were discarded, fashion designer and archivalist Froyo Tam says, “It's easy to create something that's sensationalized, boiled down, and studied to its surface level,  while most of the time, disregarding the societal context that helped shape it in the first place." I want to know, is indie sleaze a bold statement against the establishment and our modern woes or merely the bubbling head of a jaded, apathetic, middle class state of arrested development -a white suburban kid’s wet dream? What the hell is indie sleaze anyways?

Whenever I try to pin down exactly what and when it is, I run into trouble as it is another case of a term being posthumously slapped across a wide range of aesthetics, scenes, and eras that are then cherry picked and glommed into a new, faulty homage. It is a historically inaccurate harkening back to a time that never really existed, lamenting never having experienced a college party with Kids by MGMT playing live. We are definitely talking about disheveled clubbing clothes fit with bright colors, giant accessories, and ripped tights, but whether this homage is pastiche or parody is difficult to say. Butting up against the layers of irony clouding the earnest from the jocular in the hipster era, and shrouded in an elitism that makes Portlandia dialogue not at all far-fetched, I find it equally disorienting to identify what is occurring now in this revival, as the movement seemingly readopts the practice of gatekeeping, then baiting and switching when people catch on. Am I wrong in thinking that the McBling aesthetic was pretty easy to identify (although often confused for y2k futurism), and indie sleaze is purposely elusive? Whether indie sleaze is amorphous due to a benign inconsistency in cultural markers, an openness to individuality, or a direct intention to gatekeep, may be a matter of perspective.

Still, what years and scenes make up indie sleaze exactly? Are we picturing glamorous urban parties and Kate Moss,  Zoey Deschannel’s retro-hipster look and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, or even later into the 2010s with The 1975 and tumblr? I have heard and seen all of these different time periods, locations and scenes referred to as indie sleaze. It would seem that this encompasses many different scenes and cities, or we are otherwise historically confused, but Wikipedia breaks down indie sleaze as “a fashion style popular in the United States and United Kingdom from approximately 2006 to 2012. Characterised by an affordable, unkempt and frenetic take on vintage fashion styles, especially the 1970s, the style was particularly popular amongst the hipster subculture and indie rock bands.” Yes, this covers a wide range of the aforementioned cultural idols, although it would appear that it leans more Myspace / Facebook, and less Instagram / Tumblr. A key component of this definition is the principle that indie sleaze pulls from earlier decades such as the 70s and 90s. Basically, with indie sleaze we are copying someone’s homework, who was copying someone else’s homework. Hence why the lines are so blurry and there is a bit of ‘anything goes’ at play, allowing you to mix a McBling pair of low rise jeans, a hipster striped shirt, a vintage 70s long scarf and call it ‘indie sleaze.’ This could also explain the multiplicity in indie sleaze, as looks are a hodgepodge of vintage 70s, 90s, mid 2000s, and modern pieces. The lack of boundaries in this aesthetic is part of why the trend is generating so much hype in fashion. An eclectic style such as this affords for more creative combinations, silhouettes, and maximalist accessorizing that is more visually interesting and versatile than conservative trends like the ‘clean girl,’ or ‘off duty Gucci model’ look. 

Of course, every era of fashion and music pulls inspiration from earlier times and scientists had distilled this into a predictable 20 year loop when people supposedly become nostalgic for the styles of their youth (Ulaby, 2022). But it is no secret that gen z has been accelerating this loop, spinning the carousel faster and faster to get to the end. Many of these looks and inspirations are from as recent as 2012, only about 10 years ago. An NPR author, Ulaby points to the hyperpluralism of social media as a reason why now there is so much overlap in reigning aesthetics and microtrends, as well as this rapid adoption and abandonment of specific looks. Another obvious culprit of this accelerated fashion cycle is consumerism at large. I watched a video essay where Jordan Theresa argued that the indie sleaze aesthetic and Brat summer look is more accessible and democratic due to the fact that you are not marketed specific items such as the green swirly dress, or the godforsaken z*ra blazer in order to participate. Wardrobe basics like white tees and jeans are enough to get you started. Just like in the time when the casual, messy, indie look reigned, these looks were mostly affordable and accessible for a range of economic classes. (Of course, this was before Charli XCX launched her HM x Brat collab.) And indie sleaze more than any other current trend/microtrend is reliant on thrifting which would appear to make it more sustainable, although it results in rampant overconsuming and a jacked up reseller’s market online, once again setting apart the revival from its inspiration.

Based on what I’ve observed both on the streets and online, staples of indie sleaze include skinny jeans, t-shirt dresses, graphic tights, fitted leather jackets, long necklaces, furry hats and boots, sequins, animal prints, and skinny scarves. Here we can see how indie sleaze is a thrifter’s field day, pulling unique items from the 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, and then throwing on a 2000s graphic t-shirt. People appreciate that this style is chaotic, and I think it frees us a little from the chronically online hypercurated balletcore, tomato/cherry/lemon girl, light/dark academia, old money hellscapes. But it is also reflective of a complex we have around being highly unique, that we lean more towards maximalism and outlandish pieces in an attempt to stand out and look like the ‘star’ we think we are. Internet culture rewards these ostentatious displays of individuality, so it is no wonder we are becoming more and more obsessed with painstakingly crafting our outfits to be as unique as possible. As further indication of this peacocking, many content styles that were typically reserved for influencers such as outfit checks are now becoming acceptable content for anyone to publish. Gen z has changed millennial limitations surrounding ‘cringe’ and the very fact of putting yourself out there, allowing outlandish indie sleaze fashion to find a home. And yes, life is too short, post your damn fit check! I always, always, want to see it. 

To identify this style’s careful toeing of high brow and low brow, I want to address the color palette of indie sleaze. The mood board and color scheme of indie sleaze would project cool greys, silver, and an iciness which bring to mind a city slickness and club aura. It is edified by the ‘it girl’ Kate Moss going to the nightclub in a mini skirt, sexy barely-there sheer tops, and silver eyeshadow. In the revival, there are also overlapping elements of aspirational wealth from McBling, and a tech futurism that sometimes creeps in from Y2K, featuring items such as rhinestones, shiny silver, and shield glasses. However, this strikes me as much more editorial and polished than many of the true indie sleaze inspirations. If you look at Skins UK, Sky Ferreira, and Cory Kennedy wardrobes, you see a lot of brightness, juvenile maximalism, and humor that seems to be missing in the revival. In fact, these shiny, gaudy symbols are almost antithetical to the original indie sleaze look, which would have rebuked anything so mainstream and flashy. As indie sleaze is more and more commodified and adopted into the mainstream, it undergoes a refining and editorializing that seems to suck the spirit out of it.

Like all nostalgic reboots, a certain element of discernment and cherrypicking comes in (what, no aztec print?), to make sure the look holds up to new standards. It explains why you are more likely to see Charli in a sleek sexy black and grey look, than in something bright and bubbly that she wore during her club kid era. As for its connection to the editorial, you have a host of Brooklynites once again lauding Hedi Slimane as their god for his late 90s and 2000s Yves Saint Laurent and Dior shows. You see fashion heads walking around looking like they picked out of Julien Casablancas’s bin, desperate for you to know that their H&M basic white tee is paired with Japanese raw denim. I do not delude myself into thinking that the original scene was safe from designer influence, as we know people with the money and resources will always be buying and wearing designer, but I do wonder what the OG hipsters would think of the current look. The internet has largely democratized fashion in the sense that there is a lot of space for truly indie fashion to be celebrated, which is great. I think I just may be annoyed at seeing brands and designers once again usurping something that was supposed to subvert them and then shamelessly trying to sell it back to us. 

I am very curious to see where indie sleaze takes pants, being brave enough to steer the conversation back to skinny jeans. After achieving a feigned state of enlightenment which decreed that skinny jeans are tacky and deemed high waisted the only respectable option, we then saw internet girls moving towards mid rise and low-rise during the pandemic’s McBling moment on TikTok, a change met with ample discourse. Still, silhouettes hovered between straight leg, wide leg, and flare. Now, indie sleaze kids are scandalously shoving their feet into tight jean ankles once again as we reach the final frontier. Right on time, indie sleaze kids are exactly where they want to be - so ahead of the curve that they are misinterpreted as though they are decades behind. I keep thinking about a video I saw on IG of an outfit rundown with Noah Dillon and Chandler Ransom Lucy of The Hellp, where they both joke that they are ‘gatekeeping’ the jeans because they already bought all the good super tight low rise women’s jeans from Bosnia. While this tongue in cheek comment reflects a level of self awareness, it shows the layers of irony and pretense necessary for these maneuvers of vanity that ring echoes of the dreaded ‘hipster’ era, even if being invoked as a bit. Skinny jeans are the ultimate litmus test in fashion right now, forcing you to calculate a high risk and deliberate what side of the fashion world you want to pigeon-hole yourself into. Skinny jeans are a fence that cannot be sat upon for a side must be taken, and only history will separate the righteous from the damned.

One thing I find curious about the indie sleaze trend is its dependence on positionality. Even though you have largely basic and accessible, non-designer clothing pieces that would seemingly make this style more democratic, it remains exclusive. Take two people wearing the same outfit- a t-shirt dress and skinny jeans. One is a bigger person and the other is a skinny white girl. One would be seen as 10+ years out of style while the other is cutting edge. This begs the question, is indie sleaze about the clothes, or is it about the bodies wearing them? How come I am not seeing style inspiration photo sets that include POC, different body types, and different hair textures? Perhaps the intangible element of the aesthetic is the irreducible whiteness and skinniness. In critiquing Troye Sivan’s choice of dancers for his music video Rush, a writer from Vulture shockingly said, “Eat something, stupid twinks,” and fired off warning shots of us barreling into “body fascism and the culture of thinness.” Is your outfit clockably modern or painfully out of date? The answer might depend on your jean size. The obsession with skinniness is perhaps the single most defining feature of indie sleaze, as heroin chic is once again deified and super skinny 90s-2000s models are back in vogue, further cementing the aesthetic in whiteness and Eurocentric beauty standards. This means that a white tank top, jeans, and a cool haircut are enough to knight you indie sleaze - so long as you’re rail thin. 

Beyond the clothing of indie sleaze, the music shaping and creating the arena for fashion is arguably more important. The early 2000s music scene birthed Karen O, LCD Soundsystem, the Strokes, the Faint, the Rapture, Fischerspooner, and Peaches, which all walked the line between indie rock and electronic dance music. Fortunately history has given us this ‘worlds colliding’ moment, a cheeky video of Kimya Dawson from the Moldy Peaches walking around at a club, interviewing people and asking what electroclash is (the answer? nobody knows). In 2024, we have lumped two or more music scenes together, and called them indiscriminately ‘indie sleaze,’ regardless of how ‘indie’ they were, or the release date (common inclusions such as Crystal Castles and Ladytron came much later, and were part of different genres from the indie scene). Our nomenclature seems a bit faulty, as the new music being produced and declared  ‘indie sleaze’ would be much better defined as electropop or electroclash. I am curious to know how much crosspollination between the rock and electronic scenes happened at this time. DJ and Producer Louisahhh and New York native describes the sound at the time saying “[you would experience] sounds that ping-ponged between the rave and the rock show.”  Danceable rock was definitely the happy middleground between the worlds, with pop rock bands like the Strokes adding new wave and synth pop elements to their tracks, making them debaucherous night out anthems you would blast at a party with friends. 

Rock music never really goes out of style, and 70s rocker looks and sonics are always being run back, so seeing this aspect boom right now is not all that surprising. But the big cultural and internet moment is not happening with rock right now, as we don’t have a “the Strokes” blowing up right now. Actually if you look at Tidal’s new alternative / indie chart toppers right now, it feels incredibly lukewarm. Most of the artists on the list are already industry staples, and have been around for 10+ years. Rock is not having its moment, but electropop definitely is. Beloved dance music and queer idol Charli XCX is finally having a breakthrough in her 20 year career. Humor is also coming back in a big way as the Dare released their single, ‘Girls,’ in 2022 which is like if LCD Soundsystem wrote exclusively about bagging women and doing drugs. In interviews he shows a deep appreciation for the precursor music which he takes inspiration from, and is clearly devoted to emulating a certain sound. Other electronic acts like 2hollis, Snow Strippers, and suzy sheer are decidedly more modern and yet they are also lumped in. While gen z is flocking to the style of music coming from artists like the Dare, most are too young to be familiar with the earlier electronic music which inspired it. Chal Ravens and Tom Lea of the music podcast, No Tags, argue that highly stylized TikToks and other social media content happened to use a lot of this new electrohouse music with their fashion, aesthetic, and lifestyle content, and it became retroactively linked with this mid 2000s scene. They believe the current music being touted as Indie Sleaze does not fit the name, as there is no ‘indie’ or band element to it at all, and it is much closer to electroclash, or more appropriately the electrohouse and bloghouse scenes. They call it ‘soundcloud’ music, noting the solo production and internet origin of these hits, which is very different from the grassroots indie scene which powered the original music. These ways in which the revival departs from its amorphous parent reflect how the music scene has changed in the last 15 years, having gone completely online. The development of virtual socialization as well as the pandemic which not so briefly eradicated in-person options has had us stuck in our bedrooms, collaborating over the internet, and messing around on computers and home-studio equipment to make our music. Thus, soundcloud is the new garage where you practice. So maybe soundcloud is the new indie.

What most interests me is the spirit behind this cultural shift in music and fashion. At its surface, Indie sleaze is equally glamorous and trashy, it is messy, brazen, sexy, and indulgent. We are smearing black kohl liners all over our eyes, smoking cigarettes again, and flaunting a carefree, if determined sexual openness. This is a safe place for getting blackout drunk with your friends and going home with someone you probably shouldn’t. At first, I was willing to chalk this all up to nostalgia. Seeing Effie Stonem pop up on my timeline is a warm and fuzzy feeling, and I still do adore her t-shirt dresses and necklace stacks. I long for 2 hours uninterrupted in D.E.B., with my sister, looking at all of the wildly inappropriate, tight clubbing dresses and platform heels being sold to 13 year olds like my sister for the winter formal. I distinctly remember gazing longingly at a pair of grey and red stiletto peep toe heels with zebra print that I wanted so badly I could have combusted. I dreamed of one day being a grown woman, finally able to wear such classy things. In indie sleaze there is a yearning for what we believe to be simpler times- coincidentally, when many of us were still children. I note this as a simple desire for fun, for what we envisioned our dream life would be- making a music video in our heads while listening to ‘Like a G6’ for the first time.

But more than nostalgia and romanticized views of teenhood presented by TV and social media, there is a deep craving for rich in-person social networks. As regressive and Christian/conservative coded trends like cottage core, trad wives, and clean girls also share the main stage, there are many of us who want something other than retreating into the wilderness. After the pandemic stalled all live music events, socializing, and stunted many of our developments, we have bounced back with a ferocious desire for togetherness in the club. Charli is bringing electronic music back into the mainstream and also popularizing being ‘outside’. A storied club kid herself, Charli seems to have gotten more gen-z homebodies interested in sampling clubs and chasing that 3OH!3 “DONTTRUSTME” high. Now I am adamant about my pro-club agenda, as getting more people of all ages out at night to connect with their neighbors, support the local scene, and literally touch grass can have nothing but positive benefits. But celebrities’ P.R. messaging for clubbing as a decadent lifestyle without drawbacks lacks obvious context. It is as if Skins taught us nothing, and that our media literacy didn’t improve at all with Euphoria, which couldn’t have more dutifully spelled out the risks of substances. We can’t help but feed into and buy this glamorization of party life and ignore the obvious dark side. One of the big faces of these glamorous parties in the mid 2000s, Cory Kennedy, was only 15 when she first started appearing in Mark Hunter’s club photography and working for him. She began dating him soon after, despite his critical 5 years on her. In retrospect, Cory reflects on how sad and dangerous it was for her to be neglected and taken advantage of in these spaces that were dominated and controlled by older men, something that continues to echo even in today’s post-Me Too climate.

Perhaps most importantly, the economy also helps explain this resurgence and aggressive churning out of club hits. Many of us are surviving this economy, high rent, student loans, and dismal job opportunities through raving. I also think about the economy gen z grew up in - basically ranging from bad to horrible by the time we reached sentience.  Economic security is now the norm as younger generations are the first to move backwards economically, against already unequal trends of upward mobility. Death and taxes seem like the only sure things, so a little nihilism is perhaps understandable. Brat summer has been squarely defined as marking a new era of recession pop which explains why everyone seemed to want to party their troubles and fears away. Money is hard earned and quickly spent, but being young and hot is priceless. While the news reports that the economy is good, people are struggling on a daily basis and the saccharine pop music we are bumping right now reflects a collective coping. However, this reinvigorated interest coincides with nightclubs shutting down at alarming rates. The UK Night-Time Industries Association found that almost a third (31%) of all nightclubs closed between March 2020 and December 2023. They say that at this rate, nightclubs will die by 2030. This is funny to think about when it seems like everyone is a DJ now. Hopefully this renewed interest in clubs and dance music will reverse the trend of venue closures as clubs are attracting more and more gen z to try it out. 

In examining the rise and reanimation of indie sleaze we see that this cultural phenomenon is much more than a compelling amalgamation of thrifted fashion, danceable rock anthems, and late-night debauchery. It is a mirror to our social, economic, and emotional realities. Whether driven by a yearning for pre-pandemic social vibrancy, an ironic reclamation of millennial nostalgia, or a desperate response to an increasingly alienating digital age, indie sleaze encapsulates a restless spirit seeking meaning in excess and celebration in the club. Though as the trend evolves, questions of inclusivity, body politics, and ethical consumption linger in the air, challenging the narrative that indie sleaze is somehow cutting-edge or subversive. Beneath the carefree DJ sets and fur hats lie a tangled web of cultural contradictions—one that simultaneously resists and succumbs to commodification, idolizes individuality while gatekeeping it, and yearns for authenticity in an era of hyper-curated aesthetics. In indie sleaze we are both freed and trapped from our social ills. Whether this is a flash in the pan or here to stay, the resurgence is a reminder that every microtrend tells a deeper story about who we are and what we crave. So to skinny jean or not to skinny jean, that is the question.