Few images capture the spirit of the early-to-mid-2000s indie sleaze era quite like grainy photos of Kate Moss and Alexa Chung, muddy and parading around festival grounds, immortalized in granular Tumblr photos and soundtracked by the British television show Skins UK. Now, its revival is unmistakable: unpolished, gritty, and unapologetically hedonistic, echoing a youth culture rooted in blind rebellion. Charli XCX’s 2024 BRAT era evoked a similar spirit, alongside the rise of The Dare and, inevitably, fashion’s cyclical obsession with its own past. The skinniest jeans, dirt-washed denim, ragged furs, distressed tees, and micro-everything have all made their comeback, perhaps with their biggest leader of the pack: British label, Jaded London.
A quick scroll through TikTok shows just how in-demand Jaded London has become. Every drop is recorded through haul videos, while others, priced out or simply waiting, bookmark pieces and compile running wishlists. The brand has managed to bottle the glamour and grit of the early aughts, capturing a moment in time and expanding it into something bigger.
Just this past month, at the start of New York Fashion Week, Jaded London set up a long-term pop-up in SoHo, on the corner of Grand and Broadway. It’s there that founders Jade and Grant Goulden sat down for the interview, inside a brutalist-inspired space in shades of grey and metallics, lined with racks of clothes, and pulsing with techno music At its center sat a glowing plastic box labeled ‘Smoke Room,’ a nod to the kind you’d find tucked into the back of a South London rave or a late-night Parisian club.
The brother-and-sister duo grew up basically bred into the fashion industry. “We’ve always loved dressing up and going out on a Saturday night,” says Grant Goulden. “Fashion has always been part of our family. Our grandfather was a tailor, and our dad worked in the garment district. We just grew up around it.” Jade Goulden adds, “It’s in our foundation.” Naturally drawn to a career in fashion, the Gouldens launched Jaded London in 2013, rooted in streetwear. “We just thought, let’s set up a brand and keep it small and very organic,” she says.
The brother-and-sister duo saw their partnership as a perfect balance, each filling in the gaps the other couldn’t cover. “I know nothing about menswear, but show me 10 dresses, and I can tell you the best setup for womenswear,” says Jade Goulden. “We realized we could make a great team for a unisex line, which was just starting to emerge at the time. It wasn’t really a thing yet, we were pioneers working ahead of that trend.”
From there, they were able to birth and define the brand. “It’s a sexy aesthetic,” Jade Goulden says. “It’s also day to night. It’s streetwear from Japan, hip-hop culture, filtered down to the catwalk trend. It shows we’re in with trends but in a less commercial way.”
They also take pride in understanding what the “American consumer” wants, and to them, that means the “London look.” And no, it’s not the rehearsed, wide-gapped model from the Rimmel London commercials. It’s the indie sleaze vibe of the early aughts: gritty, greasy, yet somehow polished, embodied by icons like Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell. It’s sleazy, nightclub-ready, model-off-duty cool, the essence of a rockstar before they’re discovered (or at least SoundCloud rapper ). It’s in.
But capturing the early aughts correctly is tricky. The duo is critical of the “fast fashion players” who mimic the look in a cheap, unauthentic way—“doing it in such a naff, cheap way,” as they put it.
According to Grant Goulden, the brand embraced the ethos of streetwear and accessibility. “We wanted the price point to be inclusive, so people wouldn’t feel alienated by the cost of luxury,” he explains. But just because it’s not luxury doesn’t mean it’s cheap. Jaded London’s pricing sits comfortably alongside brands like Coach and COS, medium to higher-end casual wear, with pieces ranging from $77 for a baby tee to $496 for a faux fur jacket.
That said, Jaded London hasn’t fully escaped the fast fashion conversation. Across TikTok, Reddit, and X, there have been claims that the brand shares factories with Shein, with identical pieces reportedly carrying both SHEIN and Jaded London tags on the same garment.
“Fast fashion is a very broad term,” says Grant Goulden. According to him, brands like SHEIN and their price points “cannot be compared or seen in the same light” as Jaded London. The duo emphasizes that they work with “top factories and great quality” clothing. Jade Goulden adds that Jaded London is part of the organization Fairly Trade Fairly Made, which tracks supply chains from start to finish. “We’re working with factories that also produce for premium brands.”
There was some confusion around their factory relationships, initially exaggerated as a 20-year partnership due to their familial relationship, but later clarified to 12 years. Either way, they claim to have a long standing history with the factories they work closely with. Since these factories have worked with their father for years, Jade Goulden says, “It feels like a family business.” Beyond production, they run a Depop store to give their clothes a second life while building community around the brand.
During the pandemic, their brand grew exponentially, and community became their main focus. While their presence was entirely online, customers couldn’t physically see, touch, or experience the clothes—or even step into the Smoke Room installation via Instagram. That’s why they decided to come to New York.
“New York is a fashion hub, but the U.S. accounts for 40% of our revenue even though we’re based in London. We want to grow our U.S. customer base,” he explains. For them, this specific intersection in SoHo, surrounded by brands like “Alexander Wang and Ganni” is the perfect place to be. “We want to be thought of among these circles,” but with a less polished twist.
“Jaded London is bold, rebellious, disruptive, it’s not for the faint of heart,” they say, speaking over each other. He continues, “It’s for people who want to stand out. It makes sense for a time when people want to make an appearance and say what they stand for. We want to embrace that, we want to create a really big movement.”
The store, described as an experiential space, opened with a night-long rave that stretched into the morning at the Chocolate Factory in Bushwick, Brooklyn, one of the few places still keeping rave culture alive. They wanted to bring that raw, underground energy from the rave into the store, which will remain open until the end of the year. “Every two weeks, there’s a drop, a DJ, a tattoo artist. We don’t want it to be traditional retail,” he says.
For now, Jaded London is one of many brands focused on Gen Z, but they’re also keeping an eye on the generation right behind them. “We’re always aiming to address the new generation. It never stays still. It’s always evolving,” he says.