The Pitillo returns and looks like heroin hooked during the second album of the Strokes

In the early 2000s, the New York Lower East Side was a hotbed of Indies Bands, where the voices loaded with apathy and the guitars scratching each note were merged with the smoke of half -consuming cigarettes. Under the neon lights, leather sucks and tight pants paraded as an unofficial uniform, marking the pulse of a scene that seemed to burn fast.

Two decades later, that image is still alive, but has changed the stage. It is no longer a dark club in the Big Apple, but has moved to the Timelines of Tiktok, where the Z generation has adopted the Indie Sleazeself -proclaiming Hedi Boys. But is it only nostalgia or are we witnessing the resurgence of the pitillos?

Does everything come back? The current trend is a shameless return to aesthetic codes that marked the beginning of the 21st century. But this time, it is not the musical underground that drives fashion, but social networks. Specifically, the Tiktoker Emma Winder, who manages the account I am Saint Laurentit has been one of the main catalysts of the resurgence of Hedi Boys. In a video that already accumulates more than 200,000 visualizations, Winder He has interviewed to several boys who seem out of a 2004 Dior Homme parade: leather jackets, dark glasses and pitillo jeans.

Far from being a simple aesthetic choice, these guys present the look as a lifestyle that mixes arrogance, irony and a touch of nihilism. Instead of celebrating physical excess, Like the popular Chic proteinthe Hedi Boys They embrace extreme thinness, evoking a dark nostalgia that flirts with the Heroin Chic of the 90s.

@emmaxwinder

Hedi Boy Uk Invasion Hediboy Hedislimane

♬ Original Sound – I Am Saint Laurent

The origins. To understand the rebirth of Hedi Boysyou have to go back to 2001, when Hedi Slimane assumed the creative direction of Dior Homme. Slimane had previously rejected a position in Jil Sander, but in Dior he found the perfect scenario to impose his aesthetics: very tight costumes, thin ties and a male silhouette so thin that it seemed tailored to the members of a rock band.

There is nothing accidental. Slimane was an consummated photographer and an independent music lover. Photographed To The Libertines, Franz Ferdinand, The Strokes and The Kills, capturing that mixture of decay, Androginia and sordid glamor that defined the bands of the moment. At the same time, his parades in Dior Homme became the place where musicians, artists and aspiring models converged that sought to replicate that look that today seduces generation Z.

The gap. This new trend is diametrically opposed to another that is also prevailing in the networks: Chic protein. On the one hand, the followers of the Chic protein They exhibit muscular bodies, hyperproteic diets and gym routines as strict as the lines of their jaws. At the other extreme, the Hedi Boys They reject that search for physical perfection and embrace a look that refers to the decadent rockers of the 2000s. Instead of muscular bodies, they prefer thin silhouettes, evoking the aura of Julian Casablancas or Pete Dohert in full self -destructive spiral.

Beyond aesthetics. The gap between both styles is more than a simple choice of costumes: it is a cultural shock between those who see the body as a project to improve and those who use it as a canvas to express apathy, decay and nostalgia. However, this type of trends, as well as The Skinnytokpromote ideals that may have A negative effect On self -esteem, increasing anxiety and promoting eating disorders.

But this new phenomenon is really a new counterculture or just an empty aesthetic filtered by the Tiktok algorithm? We may be in the presence of a superficial revival that feeds on postmodern cynicism, or also a resistance to extreme fitness culture. In any case, the debate is still open.

Image | Thomas Hawk

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