The VICE Guide to Indie Sleaze Style

The worst part of getting older is arguably when trends from your youth start making a comeback. Are we so old that Gen Z is already nostalgic for our high school years? Unfortunately, yes. If you had a Tumblr, MySpace, or Flickr account, get ready for young people to start referring to your aesthetics as “retro” and asking “what’s that?” every time you mention any trend or form of technology that has been defunct for more than a decade. Before Instagram and Netflix, we were all sitting around in our American Apparel hoodies listening to Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes on vinyl as we voraciously read Hipster Runoff even though it was personally attacking us. I’m referring, of course, to indie sleaze, and its ongoing “comeback” as documented by Zoomers and throwback accounts on TikTok.

As someone who lived through it the first time around, it’s hard to pinpoint exactly what the resurgence of “indie sleaze” is about—it conjures so many hazy memories of seeing MGMT and The Strokes, drinking Sparks, wearing ballet flats, making out with dudes wearing Richie Tenenbaum headbands or non-prescription glasses, and maniacally refreshing The Cobra Snake’s website (or scanning the pages of VICE) to see if you made it into any of the shots from last night’s party. Let me, a millennial, explain: the funny thing was that no one really self-identified as “indie” or “hipster” back in the day—that wouldn’t be on brand (and would have been certified cringe by today’s standards). This 2006 headline from The Onion put it best: Two Hipsters Angrily Call Each Other 'Hipster'.

One of the main pillars of the decade from 2003(ish) to 2012(ish) was irony—or, as the New York Times succinctly explained in 2012: “Manifesting a nostalgia for times [the hipster] never lived himself, this contemporary urban harlequin appropriates outmoded fashions (the mustache, the tiny shorts), mechanisms (fixed-gear bicycles, portable record players) and hobbies (home brewing, playing trombone).” (God, I almost forgot about all the mustaches… what was that about? Shoutout to everyone walking around with ‘staches tattooed on your fingers.)

However, there have been attempts, including by VICE, to finally form a definitive understanding of and eulogy for this era; please refer to our 2015 week of think pieces dedicated to “Remembering the Hipster.”

While many “but actually” types, including some of our comrades at VICE, have deemed the indie sleaze revival “just an echo chamber” and not an actual trend taking place in real life, this writer begs to differ. Yes, technically, a single TikTok by trend forecaster @oldloserinbrooklyn from October 2021 named the frenzy, and the Instagram account @IndieSleaze (which started in January 2021) has kept the buzz alive. Many of us millennials are already nostalgic for our hard-partying days without having pictures of us with bad bangs from 11 years ago repeatedly resurface on social media. We may be chronically online, but we’re ready to go back to some of the analog tech we held so dear during the last major recession—like film cameras and vinyl records—and may even need to tighten our belts once more by drinking cheap cans of beer instead of $21 martinis. 

As with many cultural movements that once had… some sort of depth or purpose (again, we are still figuring out what that means for indie sleaze), often all that remains in an easily digestible form are the aesthetics. We’re talking about the deep V’s, holey flannels, and huge sunglasses. We’re talking about the highbrow versions of indie sleaze (Hedi Slimane, Alexa Chung), and the everyperson interpretations (absolutely nutty thrift store mix-and-matching). Many of the iconic style staples of indie sleaze do, in fact, still hold up today. 

All hail the days of looking like you rolled out of bed (on purpose), being yourself, and bragging about finishing Infinite Jest. These are all the trends (we haven’t blocked out of our memories) that we could see popping up next during this modern-day indie sleaze revival. 

Close your eyes and journey back to 2010ish: The drinks are strong, the make-outs are sloppy, the DJ almost blew the speakers playing “Electric Feel,” and we had to step into the bar bathroom to snort molly off a stainless-steel toilet paper holder. Step foot in any Crystal Castles show, and you’ll find the almighty disco pant. Somewhere between leggings and trousers and snakeskin and plastic and pleather and stain, disco pants—with their high, booty-bouncing pockets and tapered ankle—were the perfect embodiment of indie sleaze’s casual but potent sex appeal, and when American Apparel (now reincarnated as Los Angeles Apparel) released them in 2008, they immediately had a chokehold on hot party girls in cocaine-fueled coastal cities. Unlike other pants of the time (WTF was up with Cheap Mondays?), disco pants were genuinely, almost confusingly flattering. British fashion site The Tab recalls the stretchy, form-flattering, lustrous pants as “the trousers that made us all look like shiny Lycra seals.” For more than a decade, the disco pant was lost but not forgotten—fated to return someday, sometime, in a new world. And that world is ours today, because SKIMS, the ultra-popular basics brand founded by Kim Kardashian, just brought the bottoms back; one of our editors owns them, and says they’re just as fun to wear (and look just as good) in 2023. 

Everyone wanted to look like Kurt Cobain, from slouchy tees to pilling cardigans, and even though grunge wasn’t even a full decade behind us, we were eager to bring back its aesthetics by the mid-aughts. Did the appeal of a really comfy plaid shirt ever go away? No, but in case you’ve gotten rid of your old stash, you can never have enough good flannels. 

Whether you actually went thrifting or just bought them new from Junk Food (remember them?) vintage and slogan T-shirts were inescapable. The more ironic the logo or message on the tee, the better. Bonus points for super soft and thin old shorts from beer brands, or sports teams you know nothing about. 

Wayfarers were the undefeated sunglasses style of the prime indie sleaze time period, aside from those really giant oversized vintage pairs you saw on everyone from Kanye West to Kreayshawn (see below). Not only did they look effortlessly cool, but they helped to protect our bloodshot eyes during brutal hangovers. 

Great for concealing smeared mascara, huge pupils, or any other number of facial features that you didn’t want on display at the function, oversized sunglasses came in all shapes and sizes, from those Kanye shutter shades to intentionally dorky granny glasses (see: young Tavi Gevinson). As for these oversized tortoiseshell aviators, you probably associate this style with some famous faces from the time, including canceled sex-pest photog Terry Richardson and American Apparel founder Dov Charney.

We’re sad to report that low-rise jeans are, in fact, back for the youths who don’t know any better. But we await the triumphant return of the everlasting skinny jean—we know they will make their re-emergence into society sooner or later, ironically or unironically. Brands like Cheap Monday and Topshop cocooned our legs until we were forced to modernize—but we’re keeping them in our closets just in case.

Clunky oxfords and the classic 1460 combat boots were everywhere—and still are, thanks to their timeless appeal and ability to make any outfit look tougher (even if it was jorts—more on those in a second—and a mesh tank top). 

The unofficial wardrobe of every twenty-something in the mid-aughts unwaveringly included cutoffs and bruised knees. Not just summertime attire (although they were the official uniform of #Coachella), we also inexplicably rocked them with fur coats and ripped tights, plus loose tanks and lamé bodysuits. Viva la jort!

See above (bruised knees), essential during the heyday of “twee” style. While all of our tights were either fishnets, patterned, and/or ripped to bits from partying, if we’d had any expendable income, we would have benefited from today’s Sheertex tights, which are designed to prevent runs.  

This look—the across-the-forehead terry sweatband or beaded headband—was a weird one… but we give it another few months until Gen Z is rocking ‘em. There’s the obvious nod to The Royal Tenenbaums, but there was also a bit of an 80s renaissance happening (hot pants, lamé, terrycloth) that played into these popping up all over. 

Even in the dead of summer, there would always be some babe at the party dancing to Hot Hot Heat in a raccoon tail hat or faux fur trapper hat, inexplicably paired with a tank top or shiny American Apparel leotard. Who started this? Nobody knows. Maybe blame our third-grade teachers for introducing us to Davy Crockett and his badass frontier ‘fits. 

The chokehold that these chest-baring shirts had on the hipster populace was a death grip. They showed off all of our most super-cringe clavicle and chest tattoos, as well as our giant owl necklaces and hickeys. Even though American Apparel was bought by Gildan back in 2017, you can still snag those iconic deep V-necks from the brand on Amazon (why was purple the color?).

If you didn’t dye your hair in the bathroom sink with Manic Panic, did you even experience indie sleaze? Nowadays, influencers are paying hundreds at the salon for the bright hues we achieved with a $15 tub of dye and some rubber gloves. 

Everyone and their mom had this exact Crosley record player (most likely purchased in person at their nearest Urban Outfitters). The sound quality on these kind of sucked, but we were mostly in it for the aesthetics (so many colors and prints) and the “portability” of the handle—because you bet we were actually lugging it and our records to the park. 

The Canon Rebel was the camera for taking hundreds of party pics, but for the moments that begged to be documented in 35-millimeter film, disposable cameras always offered that je ne sais quoi. For starters, selfies are so much better when you can’t immediately analyze them and demand retakes, and there’s something special about disposables having a predetermined number of shots—it makes you much more discerning about when to charge up that flash. Plus, it all made great content for our Flickr accounts.  

The next logical step after writing your ex a breakup note on an analog typewriter and commuting on a fixed-gear bike is obviously filling your home with dead animals. Walk into an aging hipster’s home, and I guarantee you’ll still find deer antlers on the wall and some preserved bugs in frames. Why we’re we all simultaneously trying to turn our apartments into the Evolution Store? 

Tao Lin is the patron saint of hipster literature (alt lit, to be precise). Some of his work is legitimately great, like the novel Taipei, but his early, ennui-drenched books about boredom in the age of the internet constitute some of the most central works of this period.

Copies of Infinite Jest are signifiers that indie sleaze-era book snobs are probably near. The culture didn’t require you to actually read this book; in fact, most haven’t—it was simply in having a copy that you staked your claim as a hipster. Do I have a copy of it? Yes. Did I borrow and never return it from a friend’s house after accidentally sleeping with them after a show? Yes. Have I read it? No. Indie sleaze. 

While we might not be ready to stuff ourselves into a pair of skinny jeans quite yet, we look back at all the crazy stuff we wore when Animal Collective ruled the world and think, hey, some of that stuff looked really stupid, but at least we were having way more fun than we are in the current state of late-stage capitalism. And who knows—if the indie sleaze revival is real, maybe it's time to show up to your next house party in the old raccoon-tail hat and deep V, even if you're there to drink pêt-nat instead of Four Loko.

The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals? Sign up for our newsletter.