Fashioning Indie

In 2005, British supermodel Kate Moss went to Glastonbury with her then-boyfriend, indie rocker Pete Doherty. Their unwashed appearance captured widespread attention, propelling the British indie music scene and its signature lookslender bodies clad in skinny jeansto the center of popular fashion. Using this fashionable watershed as a launching point, Fashioning Indie narrates indies evolution: from a 1980s British music subculture into a 21st-century international fashion phenomenon. It explores the lucrative transformation of indie style, first into high concept menswear and later into festival fashiona womenswear phenomenon that remade what indie looked like and provided a launching point to reimagine who the ideal subject of indie could be. Fashioning Indie is essential reading for academic and popular audiences, offering an original account of what happens when a subculture is incorporated into the commercial fashion system. As the music and fashions of festivals face increasing scrutiny in debates about diversity and inclusion, and the transformations of indie style coincide with the global expansion of the second-hand retail sector, the book offers also essential insights into the broader culture of popular fashion in the 21st century and the values that inform it.