By Taylor Trotta...
Warning: This article may contain material that is sensitive to some readers.
We’ve all been captivated by that certain something… that unbothered, too-cool-to-care aesthetic that dominated fashion in the 1990s. It was raw, unapologetic. And yes, it was deeply controversial. The heroin chic era, inspired by sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll (or more specifically, grunge music), reshaped beauty standards with a bony, hollow-eyed whisper rather than a polished scream. It was an era where fashion didn’t just borrow from rebellion, it built a home in it.
Designers leaned into chaos with their intention. Calvin Klein set the tone with stripped-down, minimal campaigns that made fragility look seductive. Marc Jacobs was ousted from Perry Ellis for sending grunge down the runway, showcasing models clad in flannel, beanies, and combat boots, mirroring the thrift store cool of downtown youth. Anna Sui gave us girlish dresses with a gothic twist, pairing soft silhouettes with a sense of untamable energy. Helmut Lang brought cold, cerebral minimalism to the forefront, rejecting glamour in favor of stark realism.
In front of the camera, one face came to define the era: Kate Moss. With her doe eyes, razor-sharp cheekbones, and aura of effortless detachment, she embodied the look in a way no one else could. More than a model, Moss became a symbol of the decade's obsession with the undone—equal parts angelic and anarchic. This was fashion at its most self-aware and least interested in being “beautiful” in the conventional sense. Makeup looked slept-in, hair was greasy on purpose, and clothes hung off the body like a shrug. It wasn’t about flaunting wealth or luxury—it was about detachment, about being cool enough not to care.
The 1990s didn’t so much invent anti-fashion as much as they weaponized it. The style playbook came from alleyways, underground clubs, and dive bar stages rather than Parisian runways. Think Courtney Love in her babydoll dresses and intentionally smudged red lipstick—part ingenue, part chaos. The irony? She’s long insisted she never actually wore combat boots. And yet, the image of her stomping through music videos and red carpets in tattered satin slips and scuffed-up footwear has been burned into fashion’s collective memory. She has also historically rejected the term “heroin chic” and claims she coined the term “kinderwhore” to describe the grunge-inspired style back in 1991. This kind of contradiction is typical among grunge artists, rejecting mainstream labels and fashion movements, even as they inadvertently become icons of them.
On brand with this aesthetic, it refuses to go quietly. Heroin chic has cycled through fashion consciousness in various iterations. The indie sleaze revival of the 2010s carried the same spirit, though this time tinged with Tumblr-era irony and American Apparel ads. The look was less about escapism and more about performance, but the bones remained: slouchy silhouettes, peekaboo lingerie, and a sense that you got dressed in the dark and still looked cooler than anyone else in the room.
Today, we’re seeing another reemergence through the lens of the rockstar gf archetype on social media. The aesthetic’s modern muse wears ripped denim, thrifted band tees, and eyeliner so thick it’s basically war paint. It’s a look that says, “I didn’t try” while clearly understanding the nuances of effortful nonchalance. The lines between homage and reinvention blur here, but maybe that’s the point.
But with every revival comes a reminder of the original controversy. The heroin chic era wasn’t all satin and eyeliner, it also came with significant backlash. Critics questioned the glorification of unhealthy body standards, the glamorization of addiction, and the fashion industry’s responsibility in shaping public perception during the peak of the AIDs epidemic in America. Tonne Goodman, a former Vogue fashion director, once famously recalled her initial reaction to an early Kate Moss shoot with,“This is going to be something we're going to embrace and endorse?” It was a valid question then, and it’s still relevant today. The era eventually came to a screeching halt in 1997 with the sudden overdose of a prominent fashion photographer, Davide Sorrenti who was only 20 years old. The term heroin chic itself was coined at Sorrenti's wake by editor Ingrid Sischy, who commented: "This is heroin, this isn't chic.”
Fashion has always flirted with danger, but heroin chic blurred the line between aesthetic and reality in ways that made people uncomfortable. And yet, its visual language keeps returning because it speaks to something deeper than just clothes. It’s about disillusionment, about rebelling against perfection. It’s about finding beauty in imperfection, power in fragility, and style in chaos. Of course, we can’t talk about this look without honoring its cornerstones (dark eyeliner, ripped jeans, slips dresses, and your dad’s old work boots). Together, they form the holy grail of anti-glamour. One whispers vulnerability, the other stomps on it. It’s a contrast that somehow always works, a pairing that continues to reassert itself with every new wave of disaffected fashionistas.
In the end, what heroin chic gave us—beyond the smudged eyeliner and waif-like silhouettes—was an invitation to care less, to question the polish, and to find allure in the undone. Love it or hate it, it’s an aesthetic that refuses to be forgotten. And no matter how many years pass, you should never underestimate the power of combat boots and a slip dress.
Sources:
IN VOGUE: The 90’s (stream on Hulu and Disney+) (2024)
A Death Tarnishes Fashion’s Heroin Look, Amy M. Spindler (1997) https://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/20/style/a-death-tarnishes-fashion-s-heroin-look.html
20 Questions for Courtney Love, The Queen of Grunge (2019) https://www.interviewmagazine.com/culture/20-questions-for-courtney-love-the-queen-of-grunge
Embodying Withdrawal: Abjection and the Popularity of Heroin Chic, Mary Rizzo (2001) http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.ark5583.0015.004
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