Welcome To The Year Of Indie Sleaze

The indie sleaze era had it all. Sky Ferreira hanging out with Taylor Swift at Katy Perry’s birthday party. A maximalist approach to fashion (no one would bat an eye at pairing shutter shades with a bikini top indoors). Skins parties that recreated the debauchery from the hit British series. Fan-run Tumblr accounts dedicated to the relationship of Alexa Chung and Arctic Monkeys frontman Alex Turner. Wild nights out captured with cameras instead of phones — with flash photography a must.

It’s been a decade since this cultural phenomenon ended, but it’s left an enormous footprint on music and fashion. The initial spark came shortly after 9/11, with bands like the Strokes and Interpol releasing their debut albums. It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that indie sleaze became a widespread craze — reaching peak popularity in 2009, following the Myspace emo era… read more >