From margins to mainstream: The uncomfortable return of Quinqui
On the fringes of a Spain being shoved into modernity, where the stale scent of Francoism still lingered in the upholstery of power, one of the most powerful, uncomfortable, and contradictory aesthetics of our recent history was born, almost by accident: the quinqui aesthetic. It wasn’t a trend. It was a consequence. There were no stylists in the concrete blocks of La Mina, La Uva, or Las Tres Mil Viviendas. There was need, rage, and a lot of heroin. But decades later, everyone wants to dress like the kids from Perros callejeros. Open-collared shirts, flared pants, mullets.It’s all over music videos, store windows, fashion runways... Quinqui is back.
Quinqui cinema emerged in the late '70s and early '80s, a form of gritty realism that captured the lives of young delinquents in the urban outskirts, those neighborhoods untouched by the State or even color television. José Antonio de la Loma gave the phenomenon a face with his Perros callejeros saga, inspired by real kids like El Torete and El Vaquilla, who not only played the lead roles but also re-enacted their own downfalls. Then Eloy de la Iglesia took it even further: with Navajeros, El pico, Colegas, he turned these stories into political outcries, wrapped in violence, drugs, and desire. These were raw films, stripped of glamour, shot on location with actors who’d seen more holding cells than theater stages.
The look captured in those films wasn’t really an aesthetic, it was a code of identity. It wasn’t about style; it was about survival. Clothes were borrowed, stolen, or handed down. Haircuts depended on what you could afford. A car wasn’t an accessory but a tool (often a stolen one). Quinqui wasn’t underground; it was rock bottom. In those vertical neighborhoods, soulless and underserved, built under Francoist developmentalism, crime wasn’t a lifestyle choice, it was an inherited sentence. There was no future there, only an endless present.
And yet, over time, that world has been absorbed by popular culture and returned to us, repackaged, as a symbol of authenticity. Nostalgia, ever hungry, has turned quinqui into a symbolic goldmine. Now it's worn by urban artists who’ve never stepped foot in the projects. Rosalía covers Los Chunguitos with a backward glance. C. Tangana blends kinki aesthetics with Lavapiés poetry. Derby Motoreta’s Burrito Kachimba call their style “kinkidelia.” Even fashion designers have reimagined the unofficial uniforms of the outskirts.
But the picture painted by marketing campaigns isn’t so pretty. There’s a deep contradiction in romanticizing the quinqui world. As noted by outlets like El Salto and El País, turning a kid from the barrio into a style icon without addressing school dropouts, drug addiction, or the media’s criminalization of their families is an empty gesture. What was once marginalized is now glamorized. What used to be shame is now fashion. A sanitized image is celebrated, while its origins are ignored. And in that process, we lose the most important part: the why.
The fascination with quinqui is inevitable, because it was real. Those films, for all their excess and contradiction, exposed a fractured nation. They showed the faces never seen in the transition-era commercials. Those outside the system, not by choice, but because they were never invited in. Quinqui is the raw, unfiltered memory of a lost Spain. And that’s why it captivates.
The quinqui aesthetic brings us back to an uncomfortable question: are we admiring what we once scorned, or just consuming its image to cosplay authenticity? The kid with a mullet and a Caravaca cross in a music video shot on the outskirts may not know he’s copying someone who died of an overdose at 18. Or maybe he does.
Now that everyone dresses like El Torete, it’s worth remembering he didn’t have a stylist. He had hunger.
