Studs Are Back… Are We?
Soft-grunge-turned-modern-day girliness of studs.
Bass ringing in my ears. Lights flashing blue to the beat of A Question of You. Elijah Hewson, just fifteen feet away, singing the intro to the fourth song on their newest album - and somehow, I couldn’t take my eyes off Josh Jenkinson, on the electric guitar to the left. Bobby - Robert Keating - held down the bass notes on the right, though some guy’s head completely blocked my view. Obscured. As was Ryan McMahon, too far off for my poor eyesight, though the beat of his drums echoed through my eardrums. Seventeen minutes in, and I was back in my fourteen-year-old bedroom in suburban Jakarta.
Almost two weeks ago, I was standing behind two young indie rock fans at an Inhaler concert, a band formed in Dublin in 2012, and being in a room full of indie rock heads shot me right back to 2014.
Hey, remember Tumblr?
I was deep in the trenches during the Tumblr era; a cyberspace pulsed with young adult’s angst in the face of rebellion and desire in the face of a dream. Before Inhaler, my internet was full of teenagers in their postered-wall bedrooms soundtracked by The 1975, Sky Ferreira, Arctic Monkeys, and my personal obsession, 5 Seconds of Summer. Tumblr in its 2014 soft-grunge peak was dark and moody; it was girls with side swept bangs and Manic Panic dyed ends wearing band T-shirts under leather jackets (“name your five favorite songs”), fishnet tights paired with Dr. Martens, rubber chokers twisted into infinite eights, and studded everythings.
Overwhelmed by the first generation that truly grew up on the internet, owning a Tumblr blog was hip, listening to punk rock bands was cool, and being part of a groupie was the ultimate teenage dream - or at least that’s what it felt like at 14.
Learning from two of the best Tumblr It Girls, my personal goddesses aka Elizabeth Jane Bishop and Joanna Kuchta, I tried my hand on band tees (vintage was the vision, but high street made to look vintage was the fallback), chokers purchased from a newly opened Claire’s in a random suburban mall, and my prized possession, a bag with killer studs piercing through its surface. Mine, specifically, was a black crossbody bum bag made of pleather with silver 3D studs running across the front. At the time, owning this bag was proof that this fourteen-year-old was in on it. It was proof that the things I lived and breathed through the internet had manifested itself into real life.
It’s funny that I’m learning now how studs were initially made in the 1800s to reinforce garments like the seams and pocket corners of thick materials. Think denim and canvases. But the studs I grew up with were not functional; they came as a cross on the back of a Wildflower case to the adornments of bum pockets of Forever 21 denim jeans.
Imagine my surprise when, almost ten years later, studs began reappearing on my screen again - this time in the form of the Franca bag. This Spanish-brand accessory - leather, butter yellow soaked, tucks perfectly under the arms - was my call for the return of the studs as tiny hardware dots neatly line the face and flat handle of the Instagram-famous bag. No longer in the form of a sepia-toned or vignette-tinted post, these studs on my feed had suddenly gotten a facelift. They’re no longer square and pointed on the tips, but rather flat. Circular. Minimalist. So long the ferocity of sharp edges.
Formerly paired with busted band tees and black ripped jeans, these silver dots now embellish straight-legged blue denim jeans worn under baggy dress shirts. Once known to be grungy now reappears in the form of a carefree, sun-soaked, modern working girl-type sibling. And this time, they’re accompanied by their inverted twin: the eyelet.
Scrolling through the internet this past year or so, I’ve taken notice of these hardware-adorned items. Bags, knitted tops, denim jeans, and (a full-circle moment) phone cases; these silver hardware is having a stellar moment around independent brands who have interpreted them to their own. Lithuania-based Urte Kat’s 2024 Fall/Winter collection played with silver studs and eyelets scattered across the front of their leather boots, and in the formation of spirals on their mini skirts and pants. So did Nibgnus, a South-Korean independent label who messed around with eyelets and now frontruns the craze with their headbands.
Independent brands aside, the silver hardware duo also made its way on the runway. This is not to say that they have ever left the fashion game - they’re timeless, for sure - but the prevalence of it seems to be current. Here, look at Prada’s Spring/Summer 2025 grommet skirt.
Seeing as to what the internet was obsessed with before the hardware takeover (think ribbons, bows, pink satins, and balletcore), it’s not exactly surprising to see the exact opposite replacing the mainstream. I wonder if the switch back to toughness - hard and solid, literally - has something to do with the work that goes after women reclaiming their womanhood and femininity. Beyond the admiration of witnessing the girlhood phenomena in 2023-2024, it was even more moving to see where it went next: the multitude of women expressed through trends and cultural phenomena that followed - from the strength of a woman shown through silver hardware accessorizing, to determination and independence reflected in corpcore, and the defining moment of 2024: the rebelliousness and vulnerability of a brat who challenges traditional notions of society.
Even more so, considering the current global turmoil, expressing grit and resilience through clothing have never been more apparent because as Mahoro Seward said in an interview with 1Granary, “Fashion is the most immediate symptom of culture.” Today, there are many forces that challenge the very experience of being a woman - from the rise of misogynistic manosphere that preys on women, to the broader fight for basic human rights during a raging surge in bigotry targeting minorities and the ongoing genocide in Gaza. And although fashion isn’t the be-all and end-all solution to these social and political extremities, fashion is a definite tool for reflecting what we’re fighting for: the solidarity and resilience in the struggle for our rights.
At exactly 8:19 pm on Friday, I stood amongst the indie rock heads as the big lights turned on from the ceilings. I was beaming with nostalgia of being fourteen in my parent’s house listening to the same type of music as I had just experienced in real life, only now I’m twenty-five with, hopefully, the same grit and resilience as I did in middle school trying to experience a world bigger than I had known. With a slight melancholic pang, I clung my dark denim bag under my right arm, silver eyelets along the strap, and walked out the door.
Thank you to my childhood friend, Tasia, for editing this piece!!!