Given that Amy Winehouse is front and centre of creative directors’ moodboards (hi, Seán McGirr at Alexander McQueen, Interpol have announced a UK tour, and Alexa Chung is in presenting mode (see the recent Louis Vuitton VIP arrivals live stream), you’d be forgiven for thinking that the world had been shot violently backwards to 2004. Particularly if like me, you saw Interpol play their first two albums back to back in the dark and beer-sticky confines of Birmingham Academy that year, and you’ve been confronted by the fact they are returning to old Blighty to celebrate the 20th anniversary of said tour.
Luckily, I can’t access many photographs of what I might have worn to that gig (I asked my husband to change my Facebook password in 2020), but I can imagine my interchangeable Topshop or H&M spray-on skinny jeans prevented much lower body movement, my monstrous side fringe made for basically zero visibility of the stage, and that the chance I’d have to peel one of my gold Topshop ballet flats from the Carling cup-caked floor as the lights came on was high.
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Fred Duval
For most of us who came of age listening to The Strokes and The Libertines, danced in clubs which were essentially cesspits (when smoking inside was still legal!), and pledged teenage allegiance to skinny scarves, spindly heels from charity shops and anything they could afford in American Apparel, the oft-threatened indie sleaze resurgence is enough to send shivers down their once indie Cindy spine. After all, legendary Soho nightclub Madame JoJos–which hosted renowned indie club night White Heat and impromptu acoustic performances by Jamie T–closed in 2015, Pete Doherty now lives in rural France and Blur’s Alex James spends more time making cheese than music (the less said about his “cheddar and tikka masala” flavor for Asda the better). Plus, I never want to pretend to like whiskey and coke, or Hadouken, again.
It appears however, that swerving the indie sleaze revival is not that simple. Mere weeks ago, Kate Moss–who alongside the unofficial Queen of Camden Lock Amy Winehouse, became the poster girl of indie-cool in the noughties–was seen shopping in the Cotswolds in a pair of low-rise (!) stonewashed skinny jeans, ballet flats and RayBans. Likewise, Miuccia Prada became the doyenne of the drainpipe, when ankle-squeezing denim appeared on the recent autumn/winter 2024 runway, teamed with a pair of chunky brogues which Carl Barat would approve of. Skinnies also made notable appearances on the Balenciaga and Alexander McQueen catwalks.
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Naturally, conversation at Vogue HQ has turned to who still has skinny jeans in their wardrobe. Back home, I had a rummage through my own sizable stack of denim, which these days reflects a rotating commitment to the boyfriend fit, the bootcut, the emphatically baggy, the bell bottom and the flare. There’s Japanese selvedge denim, ripped denim, stonewashed denim, dark denim, but when it comes to the stretchy drainpipe silhouette, all traces of elastane have been abolished.
So, when tasked with test driving the skinny jean comeback, I turned to my old faithful denim brands for options: Mother, Agolde and Frame. Tempted by the taper? Read on to find out how I’d style the skinny jean now…
The dark denim skinny jean
