HEROIN CHIC
Let’s talk heroin chic and what it meant to me growing up in the early 2000s.
In high school, I loved heroin chic; it spoke to my self-destructive personality, embracing grunge beauty and rebellion. I loved the dark, depressive aesthetic with waif doll-like features, messy black eyeliner, over-slept hair, cocaine-coated credit cards and transparent black slip dresses. The imperfection and edgy allure following heroin chic was to die for and was something I sort to emulate.
As a teen, I thought death was a worthy cause for becoming beautiful. My desire to be accepted by the fashion industry was admirable and enviable, given I was willing to starve to death to become a true fashion icon. The concept of starving to death was somewhat poetic and a testament to my determination and admiration for the world of high fashion and beauty. If I were going to be in the fashion industry, I would become a fashion icon. Iconography only.
Some may call me an extremist, but I call myself driven always to be the best no matter how crazy or tired I look. It's both a blessing and a curse to be me; however, in my youth, I was desperate for admiration and acceptance; being thin got me both despite society admitting its bias towards me or not.
As a lover of fashion and pop culture, how could one not be drawn to the underground grungy aesthetic of heroin chic? I always wanted to be cool, and I always wanted to be fashionable and heroin chic-defined outcasted beauty with figures like Kate Moss leading the trend. It spoke to the broken youth who possessed little direction and little self-respect but also wanted to have fun.
To my depressed mind, the concept of dying to be beautiful was romantic and cinematic. I was living in a dream-like state of mind, romanticising my pain with self-destructive delusions influenced by external messaging. I felt I would become one of the many creatives exploited by the industry until I had nothing left to give, resulting in an early grave. I liked the concept of dancing between life and death because we are destined to die anyway. There would be no difference between life and death, young or old, in my eyes; one died with wrinkles, and the other died young and beautiful. What a fabulous concept I was so foolish to glamourise.
I never want to glamourise mental illness, but heroin chic was my creative outlet to express myself. Mental illness can be so torturous yet so beautiful because you’re living between reality and fictionality. A blur between two worlds, rationalising both the good and bad. As a teen, I always thought I’d die young, highlighting the importance of dying with a purpose. That purpose being beautiful, of course. Looking back, it was a foolish delusion my depression and despair blinded me with. I loved beauty, film, fashion and pop culture; I thought to be relevant and recognised in the fashion industry, I needed to be beautiful and heroin chic was the beauty I aspired to be.
As humans, we all aspire to be something and someone special. Be careful who you aspire to be because they might just try and kill you.
We are all beautiful and we don’t need to die young trying to be someone we are not.