Where do the Coachella Style trends come from?

It's almost time. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is coming back. After a two-year hiatus due to the pandemic, over the weekend of 15-24 April a crowd of music fans, fashionistas and cool people will gather on the lawns of the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California to enjoy six days of live performances. The hype is growing not only for the performances of Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, Megan Thee Stallion, Måneskin, Doja Cat, Anitta and all the other headliners of the 2022 edition, but also for the outfits that will be worn both on and off stage by the artists and all those who have managed to grab themselves for the event that in the space of two decades has become the favorite destination of influencers and celebrities. Gigi Hadid, Kendall Jenner and Alessandra Ambrosio have transformed the festival, which was first held in 1999, into an open-air catwalk where they can show off their many specially designed looks, but also into a real trendsetter capable of influencing the aesthetics of beauty and fashion brands. In recent years, brands such as H&M, Revolve, Forever 21 and ASOS have focused their marketing strategy on the so-called "Coachella style", creating capsule collections and organizing pool parties and other events in order to accumulate likes on Instagram and, above all, increase their sales. 

The origins of Festival Fashion

The process that led to the birth of festival fashion and the Coachella aesthetic with its mix of wanderlust-meets-Instagram-meets-boho has distant roots, as journalist Lynn Yaeger pointed out back in 2014 in Vogue. The favorite looks of those attending the Indio event are exact replicas of what their parents or grandparents wore at Woodstock. The nearly half a million young people who gathered in Bethel, in the Yasgur family's alfalfa fields, to experience 'three days of peace and music' came from an America in turmoil, torn by the Vietnam War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the civil rights movement. They were disillusioned, looking for a revolution that would free them from post-war conformity and any form of stereotype or restriction, including the style diktats of Dior's New Look. That's why, when they didn't prefer nudity, they wore DIY clothes. The first festival outfits were a far cry from the similar fast fashion items of Coachella, they were pure products of imagination and ingenuity. No matter the location or the era, archive photos from Woodstock, Lollapalooza, Reading, Roskilde, Burning Man, Glastonbury show a unique thread linking the looks of the kids in the audience, a mood that responds to only two constants: rebellion and free expression.  Then, with the arrival of the new millennium, everything changed: festival fashion abandoned its rebellious DNA to become the standardized mix of boho clothes and boots that we know today. Thanks to Glastonbury, shots of Kate Moss and Sienna Miller in slip dresses and Hunter boots or, a few years later, Alexa Chung showing off her coolness by sheltering from the changeable British weather in her Barbour, festival style entered the radar of social networks and, then, of young buyers. 

The trend featured in Coachella Style

If Glastonbury is dominated by an indie-sleaze mood taken from British rockers, the looks at Coachella are definitely a mix of boho, cowboy and Y2K aesthetics, with a touch of eccentricity. From Kendall Jenner to Chiara Ferragni, from Vanessa Hudgens to Rihanna, the outfits that invade Instagram feeds every year for two weekends in April are a mix of floral crowns, denim shorts, slip dresses, fringes, transparencies, crochet, matching skirt-micro top sets, long floral or lace dresses, Texan boots, denim jackets, leather jackets, cropped tops and face jewels. In short, a sort of reinterpretation, devoid of any ideological connotation of what the Woodstock boys wore half a century earlier, as Anupreet Bhui, Commissioning Manager of the trend forecasting agency WGSN, explained to CNN:

"Fashion and nostalgia have always gone hand in hand, and when it comes to Coachella, it's that whole romanticism about having a music festival, open in the prairies, with a flower child look. It's a hippie look mixed with grunge elements. It's more about the looks than the ideology. Let's not forget: it's the Instagram generation."

Boho - Chic

At Coachella, there are always floral long dresses, romantic dresses with macramé embroidery and bucolic blouses with balloon sleeves to wear with lace shorts or flared trousers and flat sandals on the feet. White is the main colour, but the Cali girls also love more vitaminic and sunny shades, perfect on t-shirts and tie-dye dresses to be accessorized, copying Gigi Hadid, with lots of bracelets and necklaces made of colored stones and shells, the same ones they wore when we went on seaside holidays as children. To complete the boho-chic mood, the girls preparing for the festival opted for no-make-up, wavy hair, headbands and flower crowns, Paris Hilton's favorite Coachella item.

Crochet

The "peace&love" and shabby chic vibes on Indio's lawns are synonymous with crochet. Whether colorful or in classic black and white, this technique, once relegated to doilies and grandma's blankets, has become the favorite summer trend of celebrities and influencers in recent years. From Valentina Ferragni to Vanessa Hudgens, no it-girl can resist micro tops, miniskirts, shorts or crochet dresses. Just choose a simple piece and pair it with something easy like a pair of jeans or ankle boots and you're ready to dance under the Coachella stage.

Cowgirls & Native Americans

Ignoring any possible controversy related to improper cultural appropriation, Coachella goers have always been crazy about elements of cowgirl and Native American attire: fringes, hats, suede jackets, fringed jeans, feathers, duster coats worn over bra and shorts, long waistcoats and belts. The must-have accessory for this look? Texan boots, preferably from Sonora. To give a new twist to this kind of outfit, girls have started to add futuristic, almost manga-like elements, especially daring in beauty with iridescent make-up and crystals applied to the face, combined with braids or hair in fluorescent colors. Welcome to the age of space cowgirls!

Y2K

No one can resist the allure of early 2000s fashion. Britney and Christina's red carpet looks became the inspiration for outfits at Coachella. Let's go for stretch dresses, tops with cut-out details, cargo pants, butterflies, bucket hats, jewel belts that emphasize the waist, platforms and funny t-shirts like those by Heaven by Marc Jacobs. Beauty? Glow make-up, face jewels and space buns. For inspiration, we suggest a rewatch of Euphoria.

The future of the Fashion Festival

In recent editions, other factors have come into play in deciding what to wear for Indio's full immersion in music: the obsession with the best performing IG shot, the sponsorship of brands such as H&M, Revolve and Levi's who provide looks for influencers every year, but also the influence of pop culture and TV series.

"This year the style will move towards sexier clothes and neon colors. Cut-outs will be more prominent, as well as saturated and electric colors, such as shocking greens and bright oranges."

Tiffany Reid, vice president of fashion at Bustle Digital Group, told BoF, pointing out that the Euphoria effect is still very strong in both looks and beauty. So it is likely that at Coachella 2022 we will see many versions of Maddy Perez, squeezed into edgy dresses, mini-skirts, sheer shirts, cut-out dresses and tops, and very stylish make-up that has been taken care of down to the last detail. In addition, trend forecasters expect to see more apocalyptic fashion choices, daughters of uncertain times, and, with Gen Z and Gen Alpha inheriting the millennial festivals, more and more attention to green fashion with lots of vintage pieces or sustainable brands. Will this really be the future of Coachella Style and festival fashion?