What Nostalgia for Indie Sleaze Can Show Us about living in the moment
7th March 2024
By Amy Dowrick
It’s 2008. Kate Moss and Pete Doherty have split. Alexa Chung is Britain’s rising It girl. Skins is the blueprint for humanity’s personality. Ballet flats are IN. Non-prescription glasses are IN. Side-swept fringes are IN. MGMT is IN. Life just seems a bit more spontaneous while Blackberries are still the smartphone of choice.
‘Indie sleaze’ is the latest rage to brand the style and culture (and everything in between) that took place from 2006 to 2012 - just before documenting your life on the internet started to take serious shape. Geraldine Wharry of Futurist describes it as “a more nonchalant mash-up of things that feel right in the moment. Indie sleaze was ultimately about seeking pleasure, approaching life as a giant mashup, making the most of the moment at a time when life was getting darker”.
Though the late 00s party-girl chaos reigned day and night, it was the late-night debauchery that kept everyone infatuated, being immortalised forever through Point & Shoot photography. Authentic, in-the-moment snapshots with no rush for a re-take or to check if the angle was right. Party photographer Mark Hunter, most known as The Cobra Snake, has spent decades perfecting the craft of capturing truly candid, sweaty snapshots of the late 00s – something that wasn’t quite seen through in recent years since everyone started dressing up for the purpose of being photographed. Looking cluttered and chaotic was the outcome - and despite burying these years when the party was over and surrendering to what the 2010s and 2020s had in store, a quick scroll through social media now shows that everyone seems to be yearning for a similarly wild night out all over again, smudged make-up included.
So, why is everyone getting nostalgic for a period that has barely had time to cool down? 
The sudden nostalgia for the late 00s goes beyond the appeal of looking worn-in, wearing head-to-toe vintage, last night’s eyeliner, and keeping a texture spray in your bag. Between 2006 and 2012, there was a candidness that couldn’t exist in a world that uses Instagram like it does today. Each aspect of our lives can so easily be documented, with little control over who sees it and, by proxy, judges it. The online world exploding during the boredom of Covid-19 made everyone chronic scrollers, and this domino effect has allowed trends to have a 2-month expiry date before the next one hits shelves. From excessively sweet bows last month to mob-wife and fur coats this month, fashion and pop culture has never been as rapidly consumed in a society as aggressively as our own - and quite frankly, we can’t keep up anymore.
The rise in digital camera purchases to document nights out again is showing how many are longing for the privacy and allure that came with the inability to have the world at your fingertips through a phone screen. People are choosing to authentically live in the moment again - and with the late 00s being just over a decade old, it’s tangible for many to establish their style within. We’re even seeing skinny jeans make a comeback, with @databutmakeitfashion sharing how their popularity has increased 50% in the last month (yikes).
But is this just going to be another example of a trend set to fail within 2 months? Indie Sleaze and the late 00s are clearly the new successors of the Y2K era, but, as Daniel Rodgers of Dazed says, “even if Indie Sleaze is simply the next churn of the nostalgia economy, […] there are clearly still a couple of splinters to be picked from the bottom of the Y2K barrel.”
But while trend predictions may be the bane of modern society as of late, if the next big thing falls back on an era that allows us to live more candidly and get off our phones, maybe this one isn’t half bad.