graphic by emma m. green
Ahead of the release of Taylor Swift’s 10th studio album ”Midnights,” internet users are relishing in what is believed to be a renewal of 2014 Indie Grunge. The album cover features Swift in choppy bangs and a shiny midnight blue smokey eye, staring into a lit Zippo lighter. After the release of this album art, Swift fans began relishing in the potential implications of this “era,” declaring a revival of Indie Grunge. One Twitter user wrote, “the midnights cover really transports u back to 2014 american apparel, sky ferreira, grid print tumblr”.
Before we go back to lacing up our Dr. Martens, this begs the question: Where did Indie Grunge come from in the first place? And more importantly, is there any lesson to be learned from its revival?
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, born out of the post-war era, Beatniks took their stance in the United States as a counterculture to the United States’ Puritanical and rigid expectations of self and community. These moral expectations pushed Beatniks to rebel in lifestyle by engaging in jazz, sex and drugs. More than their actions, Beatniks also engaged in protest through fashion. Rising consumerism to achieve the “American dream” inspired Beatniks to reject mainstream fashion and wear plain, flexible clothing that better reflected their ideal of a less rigid lifestyle. By the late 1950s, the Beatnik movement became highly visible in the media, inspiring the 1957 blockbuster hit “Funny Face” starring Audrey Hepburn and earning its official name in the press in 1958. Shortly after reaching this status, the movement dissolved.
Then, in the late 1980s, a variation of the Beatnik movement was born again: Grunge. While many believe the Beatnik movement to resemble Hepburn’s sleek black aesthetic, participants of the movement reject this as misrepresentation. Del Close, an active participant of the movement, recalled to the Chicago Tribune in 1993, “What the first beat outfit was, and I know because I wore it, [was] more like lumberjack shirt, Army boots and blue jeans.” Its parallels are seen very obviously in Grunge aesthetics of flannels, army boots and destroyed jeans.
Like the Beatniks before them, Grunge politics rejected authority and sensibility. They rejected fashion and mainstream aesthetics in favor of embracing anti-consumerism and social deviance. And, just like the Beatniks, their heyday was spoiled by the media. In 1991, the quintessential Grunge band Nirvana signed onto a major record label and was featured regularly on MTV. Major fashion producers like The Gap began producing and styling Grunge clothing for the mainstream. By 1994, Grunge had lost all semblance of politics and was a purely consumeristic fad.
What is consistent across the decline of both the Beatnik and Grunge movements is a rewriting of history — a de-politicization of political fashion. This is evident in the rise of 2014 Tumblr’s Indie Grunge aesthetic. Built on the mainstream nostalgia of these movements in the mid-2010s, Tumblr users made a return to Grunge in the form of Indie Grunge, a fashion movement inspired by dark colors, plaid patterns and army boots. Troublingly, this historically-inspired aesthetic was no longer representative of a larger social movement and was wholly depoliticized.
While the “Indie” in Indie Grunge suggests a counterculture element to it, the trend itself was no more counterculture than wearing last season’s clearance rack. Instead of being born in political resistance, Indie Grunge was invented and perpetuated by mood boards and consumerism. In a way, this third iteration of the Beatnik movement skipped the journey of its predecessors to join them in their fate: nothing more than a consumeristic gimmick designed to line the pockets of American fashion investors. More dangerously, this movement was also accompanied by violently pro-anorexia sentiments and unattainable beauty standards.
Like most fashion trends of the 2010s, Indie Grunge lived for a short while before being turned out of the fast fashion trend production and marketing cycle. Rather than lasting a decade, the Indie Grunge aesthetic is now commonly referenced alongside the year it thrived in: 2014.
Now in 2022, consumers are eager to re-embrace the nostalgic aesthetic just short of 10 years since its birth and quick demise. Already, it appears this revival is as apolitical as its inspiration was. Rather than looking to any of the modern era’s political struggles for inspiration to follow or social ills to rebel against, the 2014 Indie Grunge revival looks to mimic the aesthetics of the year’s most-anticipated album and fast fashion marketing teams. Without a political moral compass, it will likely be short-lived as a microtrend and as a result will contribute to massive fashion waste and beauty competition.
As we pull up our knee socks and smudge our eyeliner, let’s carefully tread to protect our earth, wallets and selves. Consumers do not stand to gain nearly as much as corporations do from the commodification of aesthetic trends. Rather than embracing this trend through consumption, individuals can more positively engage in reviving the political values and tactics of Indie Grunge’s predecessors: sustainable consumption, anti-materialism, anti-fascism and aggressive protest of society’s ills.