Why The Strokes were the last truly cool rock band on the planet: inside the quintessential NYC indie hipsters’ lasting influence on fashion, from inspiring ‘indie sleaze’ to fronting Celine campaigns

Jul 9 , 2023

The Strokes in their oh-so-stylish heyday, (from left): Nick Valensi, Fabrizio Moretti , Albert Hammond Jr., Julian Casablancas and Nikolai Fraiture.

As the indie rockers prepare to play Hong Kong for the first time, Style celebrates The Strokes’ enduring influence on fashion, from drummer Fab Moretti’s Coca-Cola shirts to those oh-so-skinny jeans

Hedi Slimane was taking notes at Dior Homme before launching his famed ‘rock ‘n’ roll aesthetic’ onto catwalks – this year he repaid the favour, hiring Julian Casablancas to front a Celine campaign

Let’s face it, the last hurrah for guitar music was now more than 20 years ago. Already decimated by hip-hop in the 90s, that thing they call rock ’n’ roll enjoyed one final fumble with the cultural zeitgeist, the garage rock revival of the early 00s – yep, almost five decades after Elvis’ hips first set the world a-shakin’.

“Seven Nation Army” might have proved the DIY movement’s most pervasive musical reminder – 20 years old this March – but the media-hyped “new rock revolution” was kick-started two years earlier by those quintessential NYC hipsters, The Strokes (whose Asia tour kicks off in Hong Kong on July 16 – squeal!). But c’mon, it was always about more than the music. Sure The Strokes’ searing urgency was born in those hummable hooks, biting lyrics and jagged twin-guitar attack, but in truth it had all that had been done before, by an earlier era of NYC-ites. By Television. By the Velvets. Et al.

Lest we forget, New York-based band The Strokes possessed an effortless, street smart swagger that was quintessentially rock ‘n’ roll. Photo: Handout

What The Strokes really brought to party was street-smart swagger. Attitude … and style. Perhaps no artist of the era was more attuned to the primal power of simply looking good. It was the banned buttocks of the band’s infamous debut album cover that made the headlines, but 22 years on, it’s Is This It’s rear sleeve image of five young, rakish, carefree and devilishly handsome guys in denim that endures in the popular imagination. “Back in 2002 … The Strokes called the style shots in New York,” remembered GQ in 2009, already nostalgic for an era then only just lived through.

The iconic back cover of The Strokes’ album Is This It. Photo: Handout

Central to that style was a uniformity of skinny jeans and skinnier ties. Of high waistlines and short blazers. Or else, biker jackets, jeans and frayed vintage T-shirts. Occasionally, lumpy grandad jumpers, and even velvet. Maybe a military jacket here or there. (Too?) often: lager bottles and unlit cigarettes. Let’s not forget drummer Fab Moretti’s Coca-Cola shirts. And always, always – lots of Converse.

The Strokes were expert at pulling off that second-hand thrift store look. Photo: BMG

Everything looked, at least, like a second-hand thrift-store find. It all matched the music – simultaneously snappy but dishevelled. An aesthetic of looking scruffy and thrown-together – the antithesis of 80s rock glam. But of course they were anything but. “I don’t care about clothes, but it’s about wearing something that gives you social confidence,” lead singer Julian Casablancas told GQ in the same piece. “Or maybe helps you pick up chicks.”

“They’re all really good looking. You don’t see that very often”, one contemporary said of the band. Photo: Handout

Much has been made about the frontman’s connection to the fashion world – billionaire dad John Casablancas founded Elite Model Management, and models would show up at The Strokes’ early shows – but it was apparently notoriously dapper guitarist Albert Hammond Jr. (another nepo baby, the son of singer-songwriter Albert Hammond) who brought the pizazz.