Next
Marina & the Diamonds - How to be a Heartbreaker
Indie Hipster
posted December 29, 2025
link
link
Okay, so we are back on Tumblr! It turns out that godforsaken website was more formative than I initially expected. Look, I know I just wrote about “Tumblrcore,” and I try to keep my Fashion Subgenres totally discrete, but I can’t help some overlap. For example, I’d argue that the Indie Hipster is sort of a Scene Queen / LiveJournal Celebrity hybrid. It’s becoming a whole ecosystem, is what I’m saying, so you’re going to have to stick with me.
We’re going to attach the Indie Hipster to a different time and place: early 2010s Los Angeles. I’m so sorry, Los Angeles, but The Hat—the wide-brim black hat—is LA as hell. No other city better exemplifies it. It’s the I’ve been to Coachella hat. (Although this look absolutely had British-American cross appeal: the same girl, different weather.) She isn’t someone you ever really see in person, unless you live in California. She exists as a Tumblr page—more of an online entity, even though she’s attempting a legitimate modeling career.
The Indie Hipster’s naturally gorgeous, but forgoes the “vanilla” hot girl route for “fashionably alternative.” Therefore, she’s got the prerequisite pastel (usually pink) hair, probably with a trendy undercut that would be easy to grow out when it stopped being cool. She’s symbolically antithetical to “normies,” but is actually about as “indie” as an Urban Outfitters. That’s okay, because sometimes Urban Outfitters has really cute stuff in their sale section.
Pink hair + galaxy leggings + studs + denim shorts. This was IT.
Her clothes are from OMIGHTY and UNIF and Wildfox Couture: sassy slogan baby tees (“Where da Wifi at”), pyramid-studded cutoff jean shorts, and whatever holographic vinyl, ubiquitous galaxy print, or ‘90s revival currently looks futuristic. It’s a little gimmicky, sure—but it’s also innovative and genuinely eye-catching. At least in the year 2010, it is. The loud pieces are usually paired with less-flashy dramatic black garments so it skews more “goth” than “fairy kei.”
She accessorizes with studs, studs, and more studs; inverted crosses; aliens; and chokers. Her shoe of choice is a platform hoof, like the also-ubiquitous Jeffrey Campbell Lita platforms, or maybe creepers or Doc Martens. She’s a hopeless romantic or heartbreaker; it depends on whether she’s feeling more Lana or Marina. She’s also a disciple of The 1975, Two Door Cinema Club, and The Arctic Monkeys, and her holy texts were Lookbook.nu and early Nasty Gal product drops.
We’re going to attach the Indie Hipster to a different time and place: early 2010s Los Angeles. I’m so sorry, Los Angeles, but The Hat—the wide-brim black hat—is LA as hell. No other city better exemplifies it. It’s the I’ve been to Coachella hat. (Although this look absolutely had British-American cross appeal: the same girl, different weather.) She isn’t someone you ever really see in person, unless you live in California. She exists as a Tumblr page—more of an online entity, even though she’s attempting a legitimate modeling career.
The Indie Hipster’s naturally gorgeous, but forgoes the “vanilla” hot girl route for “fashionably alternative.” Therefore, she’s got the prerequisite pastel (usually pink) hair, probably with a trendy undercut that would be easy to grow out when it stopped being cool. She’s symbolically antithetical to “normies,” but is actually about as “indie” as an Urban Outfitters. That’s okay, because sometimes Urban Outfitters has really cute stuff in their sale section.
Her clothes are from OMIGHTY and UNIF and Wildfox Couture: sassy slogan baby tees (“Where da Wifi at”), pyramid-studded cutoff jean shorts, and whatever holographic vinyl, ubiquitous galaxy print, or ‘90s revival currently looks futuristic. It’s a little gimmicky, sure—but it’s also innovative and genuinely eye-catching. At least in the year 2010, it is. The loud pieces are usually paired with less-flashy dramatic black garments so it skews more “goth” than “fairy kei.”
Muses: Charlotte Free, Jesse Jo Stark, Sky Ferreira.
She accessorizes with studs, studs, and more studs; inverted crosses; aliens; and chokers. Her shoe of choice is a platform hoof, like the also-ubiquitous Jeffrey Campbell Lita platforms, or maybe creepers or Doc Martens. She’s a hopeless romantic or heartbreaker; it depends on whether she’s feeling more Lana or Marina. She’s also a disciple of The 1975, Two Door Cinema Club, and The Arctic Monkeys, and her holy texts were Lookbook.nu and early Nasty Gal product drops.
Both the Scene Queen and the LiveJournal Celebrity are her predecessors. In the early 2010s, a lot of Scene Queens washed up in LA and became proto-influencers: “I’m sexy, but online,” updated for Instagram. LiveJournal Celebrity contributes the indie-sleaze layer—grungy partying, ironic Americana, fashion-bloggishness. There’s also a pseudo-witchiness that makes her a predecessor to Tumblrcore, who arrives a little later (~2014), darker and more hardcore-leaning.
Scene Queen = What I thought was cool in middle school.
Indie Hipster = What I thought was cool in high school.
Tumblrcore = What I thought was cool in college.
I’ll admit: I never properly tried to emulate the Indie Hipster. I sort of tried—posted film photos to Flickr groups called “d▲ncing m▲untain,” botched a bleach job, attempted pink dye (disastrous). But like being a Scene Queen, it required a level of commitment I wasn’t willing to give. Imagine me clomping around in Litas or wearing blue lipstick. No. It’s better that I admire her from a distance and borrow specific pieces that evoke the Indie Hipster without making it feel too corny.
Next