YOU SLEAZE! The Return of "Indie Sleaze" Fashion?

Personal Style

Jan 11

“Dates back to the late 2000s to the moody days of early tumblr 2010s. Kesha, Lady gaga, sky ferreira, Cassie from Skins UK. A fashion style of smudged black eye makeup, messy hair, tights, furs, cigarettes and shiny things for the effortlessly, super cool girl. Not to be confused with a Tumblr girl. Indie Sleaze girls are free spirited and live life in the moment.
Indie sleaze was the best part of 2011 for a teen girl.
”

— Urban Dictionary/ by bottlerocket02

More specifically “Indie Sleaze” was a fashion style found in 2006-2012 where social media was quickly rising and photos were still unfiltered/ edited. FASHION, FREEDOM AND FUN!

I entered the Indie Sleaze sphere when I was a senior in high school and exited as a new college graduate. The thing about this particular style was that it couldn’t be achieved by buying an entire outfit off of a mannequin. The art was in putting pieces together like a puzzle topping a look off with the right hair and makeup (often smudged).

Who were our Indie Sleaze Icons? Lady Gaga (Just Dance era), Kesha (Tik Tok era).

It wasn’t until recently that I found out that what I wore in 2006-2012 had a style name. I started seeing posts about it on TikTok and Instagram, but had no idea what it actually meant!

After scouring my Facebook albums (remember when you could search by year?) I found photos from my college party days that I had long since forgotten and fell deep into a warm sphere of nostalgia.

What did “Indie Sleaze” MEAN, though?

The definition that stood out the most to me was on Wikipedia (take with a grain of salt). Indie Sleaze is defined as

“Indie sleaze was a fashion style popular in the United States and United Kingdom from approximately 2006 to 2012. Characterized by an affordable, messy and lethargic take on vintage fashion styles, namely the 1970s, the style was particularly popular amongst the hipster subculture and indie rock bands.”

— Wikipedia

Messy? Yes, at times (we wanted our party looks well worn in)

Affordable? Depends on who you were (I bought a lot of my pieces at thrift stores and Wet Seal)

Lethargic? HELL NO! These looks were meant to look like we just rolled out of bed after a long night of partying when in reality we spend two plus hours putting it together.

I didn’t get my first cell phone until I was a senior in high school or an iPhone until after I graduated college. My photos were taken using my Steel Blue Nikon Coolpix that I saved up for working at a boutique in Downtown Fargo.

This camera was my trusted documentarian of the events of my late teens and early twenties. It shows the scars of careless handling and good time, most notably when I took it with me on a study abroad trip to Paris, where I dropped it on the Metro and spilled my champagne all over it (this can be a story for another time).

It’s pretty trippy to know that a style I dressed in over a decade ago is now a “Style” and “Look” reemerging on social media. That’s something I thought was only reserved for my parents!

Here’s to the continuation of seeing the stages of my life through fashion!