Alt Style Is Coming Back and Women Are Leading the Charge

Oftentimes regarded as more of a lifestyle than just a personal style, alternative aesthetics never really went away. Instead, they found new life online, uniting a community that wanted more from it. With figures like Hayley Williams and Meet Me at the Altar nurturing it, it slowly but surely grew. And thanks to the boundlessness of the internet, the subculture developed subcultures of their own—think grunge fairies or hijabi goths, for example.

As a Somali Muslim content creator known for her alt-style makeup, Laylo Qasim gained attention on TikTok for her transformative beauty skills. She went viral for her base makeup in particular. Her transfer-proof finish caught attention and was dubbed the “trust-the-process” routine. But her entire look, complete with ultra thin brows and thick eyeliner, became a trend in itself, with others recreating it on themselves. In the process, Qasim, who was inspired by a fellow goth Somali Muslim at school herself, also became representation for a community online, who aren’t typically spotlighted in the media.

“I’ll occasionally get tagged in a video, and it’s another Muslim girl, or a Black girl, and she’s like, ‘Oh, Laylo convinced me. Laylo made me feel like it’s okay to be alternative and be Muslim, and it’s okay to be alternative and be a Black girl. It’s fine.’ That’s all that matters to me,” she tells Teen Vogue on a Zoom call, just a few weeks after her wedding, where she blended her alt style with traditional bridal wear.

Another content creator merging traditional garb with gothic style is TikTok user @crypticmortal. Dressing in dark toned hues and letting her long black hair down, she’s been likened to Morticia Addams, all while repping her own Pakistani culture. Balancing identity and the alt lifestyle is something that Moe Black admires, having dealt with stereotypes herself. “I think the idea that you don’t have to sacrifice core parts of your identity to dress the way that you want to. It’s what’s leading that charge and people understanding that the way you dress doesn’t define you,” she tells Teen Vogue. “It’s just an extension of your character, and I think it’s really cool.”

Dealing with preconceived notions about the aesthetics from both the Black and white sides of her family, Black says she began to tune out the opinions, perhaps because the style came almost inherently to her. “I feel like when you are plus size and you’re any genre or style, you’re alternative because you’re not really the average norm,” she says. Black took inspiration from a variety of things to find her signature style; her mom, Skins UK, One Direction and most notably, Barbie Ferreira’s Tumblr era.