The New Hipster Starter Pack

The hipster of your dad’s imagination downed his last small batch IPA many moons ago.

Yes, there was once a period when fashionable young people rode fixies and got fingerstache tattoos; when they wore non-prescription glasses and actively chose to drink out of old jam jars. But that period was 2007. By the time late-night hosts were monologuing about flat whites (a style of coffee available at Starbucks since 2009), it was no longer considered pretentious to “have facial hair”.

Somewhere in the early 2010s, the high street coopted anything viewed as remotely alt, internet memes coopted irony, and American dubstep fans coopted fluorescent sunglasses. Yet, for some reason, the mental image of a hipster holds as “someone in a plaid shirt sneering about your taste in music”.

Hipsters do still exist, of course – young, cool, in-the-know types are still wearing weird shit, still listening to weird music, still displacing long-term residents of rapidly gentrifying neighbourhoods – but the definition has broadened and blurred, and nobody calls them hipsters anymore*.

Mind you, what happened 15 years ago has happened again: in a bid to be anything but normie, young people adopt certain styles and behaviours, this adoption reaches critical mass, and recognisable “Hipster Basic” signifiers start to emerge. Out with the skinny jeans, in with those cargo pants that imply you’re hugely into urban fishing.

The hipsters of 2023 might be less judgmental than they once were, but in ye olde hipster fashion, here’s a judgmental rundown of just a few of the things that make you Hipster Basic.

*I realise this article literally has “hipster” in the headline, but none of the new terms we conjured up to classify these people – alties, antinorms, copsters – are as neat as hipster. (“Nipsters” – for new hipsters – wasn’t terrible, but the Nazis already got that.)

Crazy it took this long for juggalos to make such an impact on straight dude fashion. Next step: these guys rounding off their GRWM TikToks with a face full of clown makeup.

Juggalo appropriation strikes again.

Cool, man – your “heart beats at 140 BPM”. But seriously no need to wear your Oakleys into Tresor, it’s already very dark in there.

Five years ago, someone decided that “good taste” means drinking wine that tastes like rotten juice. Was that person the illustrator who monopolised the orange wine label market? A drinksfluencer who actually enjoys spending decent money on weird shitty piss wine? Answers on a postcard.

A lot can happen in a year – specifically, the period between Fred Again’s Boiler Room and someone realising he went to boarding school. So yes, please continue to wheel out the old “did you know his godfather is Brian Eno??” chat at the afters to impress the girlies, but don’t pretend you didn’t cry the first time you heard “Marea (We’ve Lost Dancing)”.

Grinding mushrooms into a tea is for VanLifers. Eating them by the handful is for psychopaths. Present-day hipsters either scoff mushroom chocolates – Polkadot bars, Holy Grail bars, One-Up bars – or drip mushroom oil out of their tinctures directly onto their tongues. The latter tastes absolutely foul, but it’s quite fun to start your trip feeling like a Victorian pharmacist.

Unfortunately – as chic as they can be – done wrong, tooth gems can also look a bit like you’ve got tin foil stuck to your teeth. Plus, the dentist fee to get them hacked off will make you cry.


Once the preserve of Rainbow Rhythms-esque hippie communes, maxi skirts have really made a glorious U-turn in terms of cultural cachet. The only rule is you must wear them with a teeny-tiny T-shirt, ideally an infant-sized Brasil tee, because for some reason it’s not been deemed inappropriate just yet.


We get it, you’re moving to Berlin.

We get it, you drink Guinness. 

OK! Fair enough!

Granted, the mullet renaissance has been going on a while, particularly if you’re a) a 15-year-old boy at an English boarding school, or b) Australian. But lately, those on the more avant garde end of the art school spectrum have been pushing the hairstyle to its most depraved conclusion. Think: a fully shaved head, besides a teeny, tiny quiff and a double rat-tail.

You’re clean living and extremely smug about it. But what’s that? A tiny key? A little ketty key pour moi? Well, ketamine is supposed to be good for your mental health these days, I suppose.

The Salomon wave may have started with the gorpcore crews who spend their weekends trail running and wild camping, but they’re now a fixture in every gentrified drinking hole. Which makes total sense: how would all those junior art directors make the treacherous journey from the train to the office without a pair of utility shoes?

Do you really live in [insert neighbourhood with extortionate rent] if it doesn’t have at least four hyper-local meme accounts, all competing for an increasingly diminishing pie of sponcon and branded content opportunities while attempting to stay archly relevant to an audience purely composed of haters? I don’t think you do!

I still can’t comprehend what weather these are suitable for. When will we be cold enough for sleeves but warm enough for just a cropped vest around our vital organs? It’s giving 90s, it’s giving chaotic Disney Channel stars, it’s giving freezing your hips off.


Once a drug used exclusively by white guys with “third eye” forehead tattoos. Now a drug used by middle class students who wear £300 WTAPS trousers to Croatian music festivals. 

I certainly didn’t have “26-year-old male models cosplaying as little girls” on my 2023 bingo card, but here we are.

2023 is the year everyone dyed their hair a very specific shade of red – or at least saved an album of inspo pics on their phone before chickening out. It’s sort of a “Scorsese red” slash red wine red, and it’s impossible to come back from if you get it wrong. Get clapping on your doorstep for the hairdresser heroes who are about to be on the frontline of salvaging this.


You signed up for an account and now you’re a member of the most exclusive club in town: people with a Mubi tote bag. These cinephiles swear that, someday, they’ll watch Lars Von Trier’s entire back catalogue. Don’t fool yourself. It’s not going to happen. Cancel that subscription in shame and return in three months under a new email account when some hottie tells you that he’s, like, really into the films of Jacques Rozier.

This one’s fairly niche – something as completely unbearable as harsh noise is never going to find much of an audience beyond, like, Norwegian anarcho-squatters. But the genre does seem to be having a bit of a resurgence at the moment, and there is nothing more edgelord than spending your precious free time wincing through literally the worst music ever created.

Sure, wear your white “wife pleaser” or your athleisure crop-top to a night out with the boys, but know this: Real men wear sports bras in the club. For inspiration, please observe Jack Grealish in a lovely little black number.

Everyone knows how much you paid for them.

Long live the drip you begged your mom to buy you on vacation 20 years ago – the ultimate in sustainable fashion.

This one is fairly interchangeable with: Aries’ “No Problemo” T-shirts, the Praying bikini that made Republican America very red and upset, or basically anything from Heaven By Marc Jacobs. All undoubtedly nice bits of clothing, all ubiquitous anywhere walking distance from a £5 oat milk matcha.  

First they queued for the Thursdays-only kimchi brisket sub, and I did not speak out. Then they came for the limited-edition smoked vanilla and spelt croquembouche, and I did not speak out. Finally, Chanel opened a limited edition bakery cum brand activation moment in my neighbourhood, and now my landlord’s raised the rent again.

From supersized scrunchies to the enduring humongous furry hat, decorating your head like a bird of paradise has been proven to always enhance the vibe. Maybe it’s the endorphins from straining to hold your neck up, maybe it’s because that fuzzy hat material just feels really nice to run your fingers through at 3AM. Either way, it’s a quick fix to turning your day around – and it's way cheaper than therapy or a gym membership. Next: Let’s normalise wearing wedding fascinators to work.

This look – some combination of bowling shirt, vest, gold jewellery, penny loafers and slicked back hair – has obviously been around forever. The 2023 update is that these guys now also have scorpion hand tattoos and a DM screenshot featured on @beam_me_up_softboi. 


Puerto Escondido got overrun by burners, Tulum’s been dead for years and even your mom and dad want to go to Oaxaca now. Where to head for the upwardly mobile gringo who fancies themselves a cut above your average coloniser? Guadalajara, of course – which recently celebrated getting named the world’s coolest neighbourhood, and is likely to regret it in a few years time, when people named “Chad” and “Felicity” decide to resettle permanently because Airbnbs are soooo cheap there right now. (The queer version of this is Zipolite, FYI.)

Sadly, the 90s choker never goes away for too long. Now, it’s back with a super cute Y2K prom night corsage twist. Available in silk, denim, taffeta, lace, crochet and probably your own shoelaces (at a premium, obviously), consider it your end of summer noose.

Nothing screams “I’ve listened to more techno than you” than advertising you’ve lost 22 percent of your hearing ability.