Indie sleaze

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

Originating in the late 1990s and early 2000s amongst New York City's post-punk revival scene, which encompassed bands like the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Interpol, the style began as a way for bands to visually reference the 1960s and 1970s artists they were musically influenced by. In the following years, the style was adopted by English musicians, models and internet personalities including Pete Doherty, Alexa Chung, Kate Moss and Agyness Deyn, who brought the style into mainstream popularity while expanding it into a more maximalist style which also embraced elements of 1980s and 1990s fashion. During this time, it was embraced by the British landfill indie movement and early online blogosphere-related music scenes such as blog rock and bloghouse. It experienced a resurgence in the early 2020s as an Internet aesthetic, becoming popular on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Indie sleaze's embrace by the mainstream in the mid-2000s has been described as an optimistic response to 9/11 and the Great Recession and led to a rise in amateur flash photography, hedonistic partying and drug use. Vice Media labeled the style an "umbrella aesthetic", as it encompassed several other fashion trends from the time, such as scene, twee, and electro-pop musicians.

During the 2000s, the style was largely referred to as simply indie style or hipster style. Around 2016, online Facebook groups had coined the term indie über-sleaze, shortened to simply indie sleaze in 2021 by Olivia V.