How to nail the rockstar girlfriend aesthetic in 2024

WORDS Karen Leong PUBLISHED Mon, 17 Jun 2024 - 6:25 pm

Two Sundays ago, I watched the silhouette of Sky Ferreira stumble off-stage after a ten-song set clattered to a close. The singer was two hours late. Shrouded in a bog of smog and blue light, Ferreira was near-indecipherable. The glimpses we got of her were choppy, the look, some sort of oversized coat that dwarfed her frame. She kept taking off her sunglasses and placing them atop of her head, a doll that's been wound up a few too many times. 'Sorry', she'd mutter in between each set. The medley of songs she performed were all over ten years old, and yet when she opened with Boys, the bolt of thrill in the audience was electrifying. Collectively, in that moment, we forgave her anyways.

I've been searching for the right word to describe how she looked and made me feel. Unkempt comes close. Thunderstruck is another. But since I've come to, I've realised that her performance didn't yield an emotion, but a statement: Punk is back, and with it, so is the rockstar girlfriend aesthetic.

The rockstar girlfriend adheres to most of the criteria from Gone Girl's 'Cool Girl' Monologue, but she's indifferent to its cultural lore. Her voice is bleary with over-use, and her fingernails are chipped. Courtney Love. Sky Fereirra. And maybe just maybe, you and I... with enough eyeliner that's been baking overnight. For you, this is the starting point for how to successfully pull off your very own rockstar girlfriend look, emblematic of some of the greatest women who had nothing left to give, but gave it their all anyways.