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the many uniforms of yung lean

Jonatan Aron Leandoer Hastad, born July 18 1996 in Stockholm, has been called a sad-boy enigma, a cult style leader, and a meme that somehow kept a real career running underneath it the whole time. What he has never really been is consistent. Bucket hat one year, a crown made of twigs the next, a university society’s ceremonial mace after that, and none of it seems to be in conversation with whatever came before it. That’s sort of the point.

the sadboys era

Yung Lean broke through in 2013 with the viral video for “Ginseng Strip 2002,” and the look that came with it, a Polo Sport bucket hat, EA7 Armani sportswear, Y-3 and Cottweiler tracksuits, North Face jackets, pink Uggs, became its own meme cycle before it became a citation in style journalism. Dazed later described the whole Sad Boys aesthetic as “an off-kilter, Tumblr-fied fusion of normcore, the noughties and the minimalist aesthetic associated with Scandinavia.” That description has aged fine. What’s changed is everything he’s added on top of it since.

2016

Eytys is a shoe and clothing label out of Stockholm, founded in 2013 by Max Schiller and Jonathan Hirschfeld, the name a play on how Generation Y says “eighties.” Zak Arogundade worked there for a few years before most people knew him as anything else, mainly as a sneaker designer and across product and graphic design, and Eytys still credits him with the Morso model. He’s better known now as Ecco2k, one quarter of Drain Gang alongside Bladee, Thaiboy Digital and Whitearmor.

In late 2016, Eytys, Yung Lean and the rest of Sad Boys put out a collaboration called the Spider. It came in black nubuck and leather with a green sole and cable-tie lacing pulled from BDSM and industrial hardware, just 180 pairs, launched with a dinner at The Richmond before a show at Moth Club in Hackney. Yung Sherman modeled the campaign himself.

Ecco2k doesn’t work at Eytys anymore but never really stopped wearing it. The Angel has been his day-to-day shoe for years, the same one he’s in for the video to “Obedient,” his feature with Bladee off Red Light in 2018, and he’s also been photographed in the Angel Stash and in Eytys’ Michigan boots.

Close-up of Ecco2k's feet, wearing black patent leather Eytys Angel Stash sneakers, walking on a wet street.
Ecco2k in the Eytys Angel Stash, the shoe he's worn on and off stage for years.

Yung Lean’s own tie to the shoe outlasted the Spider by three years. On the cover of Nectar, a 2019 project released under yet another name, Jonatan Leandoer96, he’s sitting against a sheet of plywood in patent leather Eytys Angels, distressed denim pooled around them.

Cover of the 2019 project Nectar by Jonatan Leandoer96, showing him seated against plywood in patent leather Eytys Angel sneakers.
Jonatan Leandoer96, Nectar, 2019. Same shoe, a different name again.

Talking to Dazed the same year the Spider came out, he ran through his actual reference points, and it’s a stranger list than the sportswear era suggests. “David Lynch’s sportswear drop, Armani somewhere around 2000 to 2001, D.T.T.K jewellery, and always great love for Tommy Hilfiger. Issey Miyake is great too.” Then the smaller stuff, “random small accessories like LV keychains, souvenirs and bag charms; also rain pants and hobo gloves. Moonboots and big down jackets.” Asked to sum up the approach, he offered a line that still holds up as the closest thing to a personal style philosophy on record.

Let’s get rich or dress to impress, depending on the occasion.

Yung Lean, to Dazed, 2016

dublin 2019

On November 13 2019, Yung Lean was awarded the Bram Stoker Medal of Cultural Achievement by the University Philosophical Society, one of Trinity College Dublin’s centuries-old student societies, named for the Dracula author who studied at the college himself. The outfit for the occasion was somewhere between thrifted businesswear and costume. He wore a mint green shirt under a taupe double-breasted blazer, black trousers in a thin rust pinstripe, and chunky buckled boots that had nothing to do with either.

Yung Lean seated in an ornate wood-paneled hall at Trinity College Dublin, and a detail of his boot on a patterned carpet.
Trinity College Dublin, November 13 2019. Left: seated under the Philosophical Society's portraits. Right: the boots, which owed nothing to the rest of the outfit.
Close-up of Yung Lean's tattooed hand gripping an ornamental silver mace, seated in an antique chair.
Gripping what is almost certainly the society's own ceremonial regalia, the kind of object every debating society this old seems to keep in a cupboard for exactly this purpose.

The medal made it into the photos too.

Yung Lean with the university society, and a solo portrait holding up the Bram Stoker Medal in its presentation box.
Right: the Bram Stoker Medal of Cultural Achievement, presented on the night.

the crown twice

Twice in 2025 he was photographed in a crown, for two unrelated reasons. The first was the cover of Sneeze N°63, “the heavy lies the crown issue,” shot in New York by Kenneth Cappello and styled by Nicole Walker, a folded poster magazine that unfolds from 28 by 41 centimetres to 56 by 81. The crown on that cover is a tarnished, twig-like construction stamped MY NATION IS IMAGINATION, styled like something excavated rather than made for the shoot.

Yung Lean on the cover of Sneeze N°63 wearing a tarnished twig crown, and a second image showing his tattoos.
Sneeze N°63, 'the heavy lies the crown issue,' spring 2025. Photographed by Kenneth Cappello, styled by Nicole Walker.

The second crown belongs to something bigger. “Forever Yung,” released February 27 2025 and directed by longtime collaborator Aidan Zamiri, follows Yung Lean through a ritual funeral procession across Budapest. He rides a truck hauling his own coffin, climbs inside it wearing that crown, closes the lid himself, waves off a line of real fans, then rides on top of it chained to the truck. He turns up elsewhere in the video in a full Uncle Sam costume. Zamiri, who has said he’s been a fan since he was around seventeen, described the concept as an attempt to reflect Jonatan’s whole life and career in one video, and the single doubled as the opening track of an era released under his own name, Jonatan, rather than the Yung Lean one. Burying the persona to introduce the person was, apparently, meant literally.

Yung Lean inside the coffin from the 'Forever Yung' video, wearing the gold crown, feathers and fabric around him.
Inside the coffin, Budapest, on the 'Forever Yung' shoot.
Yung Lean in a long black coat, in conversation with a crew member in a muddy field near the 'Forever Yung' shoot.
Between takes outside Budapest, on the 'Forever Yung' shoot.

the diary photos

Interview magazine’s format with him has mostly been diary rather than editorial, self-shot dispatches filed from tour rather than a stylist’s rack. Two candid photos from that loose format show how far the range runs even off-duty. In one he’s in a neon safety vest and a striped beanie in someone’s back garden, sunglasses on, hand tattoos on full display. In the other it’s a beige blazer with an unravelling striped tie, oversized jeans, and round sunglasses, walking down a cobbled Stockholm street past a sign for Engelbrekts Kyrkogata.

Yung Lean in a neon safety vest and striped beanie, seated in an overgrown garden.
Off duty, in the low-fi diary format Interview has run him in more than once.
Yung Lean in a beige blazer and unravelling striped tie, walking down a cobbled Stockholm street.
Engelbrekts Kyrkogata, Stockholm. Round sunglasses, a tie that gave up somewhere around lunchtime.

the shadow issue

By the end of 2025 he was on the cover of Dazed’s Winter issue, “The Shadow Issue,” photographed by Cristina Stolhe and styled by Taylor McNeill in pieces from Acne Studios, Chrome Hearts, and Paul Smith, sprawled across a stained plaid armchair that had clearly been put out for the bin behind a chain-link fence. The interview inside was a conversation with Charli xcx, his co-star in Romain Gavras’s ensemble film “Sacrifice,” about shadow selves. The high-low mix, real designer pieces staged on literal street furniture, is not a new move for him, but it’s rarely been this on the nose.

Yung Lean on the cover of Dazed's Winter 2025 Shadow Issue, sprawled in a discarded plaid armchair on a city street.
Dazed, Winter 2025, 'The Shadow Issue.' Photographed by Cristina Stolhe, styled by Taylor McNeill.

nine years on

Back in 2016 he told Dazed he’d either get rich or dress to impress, depending on the occasion. Nine years later the occasion has included a Trinity College dinner in a rust-pinstripe suit, a New York magazine cover in a crown made of twigs, a coffin in Budapest, patent leather Eytys on an album cover under a name that isn’t Yung Lean at all. None of it is trying to match the thing before it. The Polo Sport bucket hat era never really got retired either, it’s just sitting in the same closet as the rest of this now, which might be the only real pattern here: he never seems to throw anything out, he just adds to the pile.

Sources:Dazed, Yung Lean reveals his latest fashion venture · Complex, 13 Reasons Yung Lean Is A Style Gawd · Hypebeast, Eytys and Sad Boys Collide for New Spider Collaboration · YEAR0001, Eytys · Eytys, about · District Magazine, Yung Lean is making a long awaited return to Ireland · Sneeze N°63, magCulture listing · Promonews, Yung Lean Forever Yung by Aidan Zamiri · Hypebeast, Yung Lean Kicks Off Jonatan With Forever Yung · Uproxx, Yung Lean’s Surreal Forever Yung Video Parodies Americana · Interview Magazine, tag archive · Dazed, We’re like brother and sister: Yung Lean and Charli xcx in conversation · nss magazine, Romain Gavras Revives Joan of Arc in Sacrifice Thriller