Image via Complex Original
Coachella music festival is here again, and if you missed out on the first week of utter fuckery, then prepare for part two, which is right around the corner. As thousands descend upon the Empire Polo Club in the desert town of Indio, Calif., we're collectively assaulted with "bohemian chic" and barely-there outfits from celebrities and common folk alike. What's most notable though, is that in the past few years, the focus has shifted from the musicians to the celebrities and the "festival style" they broadcast on Instagram. For a so-called music festival, it's quickly become a place to show off how ridiculous you can dress in a public place.
Due to the harsh, hot weather in Indio (and other locations worldwide during the spring and summer seasons), it's near impossible to wear anything that isn't just a T-shirt. It's a literal desert. A real life thirst trap. Your lightweight scarf and cotton-linen outerwear isn't fooling anyone. Pair that with celebrities who appear at the festival more for the perceived glamour of simply being there, and it's hard to argue that Coachella is still the music festival it was when it started in 1999. It's completely removed from Pearl Jam's initial concert at the polo grounds in 1993.
Sure, on the one hand, music festivals are traditionally a time when people let their freak flags fly and stopped giving a rat's ass about how they looked or dressed. Except that's no longer the case. People are trying too hard. "Dressing for Coachella" is now a goddamn thing. The very counterculture that hippie and boho style was founded upon has become a marketable shell of itself that's being raided by basic bros and bitches alike. As if you needed any more proof, here's exactly why Coachella style is trash.
Today everyone is obsessed with an “aesthetic.” Back then it was just “dressing for the environment.”
Think about where Coachella happens. Established in the confusingly named Colorado Desert of Southern California, the Coachella Valley is host to a festival of the same name. If you're going there to step away from the confines of today's rigid social structure and partake in a city-meets-social experiment (cough…Burning Man…cough), then yeah, maybe the desert is the best place for that.
What may have started as a necessity (dressing light for warm weather) has quickly become an environment where people look ridiculous.
In the late '90s, the festival took place in October, when the Southern California desert is still not exactly pleasant. It was hot even then. Sure, in the early days, wearing minimal clothing wasn't just a style statement, it was necessary to survive the extreme temperatures.
With the festival's earlier April calendar date, along with the modern amenities of hotel packages, liquor sponsors, cooling stations, and VIP tents, it's hard to say that festival-goers are facing the same weather and comfort issues that fans were dealing with in Coachella's formative years.
On the other side of the spectrum (read: not a celebrity or staying at your friend's grandparents house in Palm Springs), if you're an absolute Coachella purist, and insist on camping out and showering (rarely) in public, it's hard to imagine you're that concerned about your “fes-tee-vahl fah-shion” in the first place. Besides, the most notable and publicized “Coachella fashion” culprits—celebrities and models—are most certainly not camping in a field; they've been given access to climate controlled tents and VIP areas. A ratty tanktop and a super-wide mesh shirt may have made sense in the late '90s, but it's hard to think that you need to dress down to basically underwear in order to make it through the admittedly extremely hot weekend.
“Counterculture” and “subculture” have been assimilated into a commericalized “pop culture” product.
Let's go back to 1993. Pearl Jam sets up a concert on the manicured lawn of the Empire Polo Club in Indio, Calif. in protest of Ticketmaster and the California venues it controlled. When the concert becomes a major success, Paul Tollett, the man who helped Pearl Jam score the venue in '93, decides to return to Indio to start a music festival—a.k.a. Coachella.
With the catastrophe that was Woodstock '99 in full public consciousness, it's not surprising that Coachella took the mantle of “the anti-Woodstock” when it hosted its first, (then) two-day festival in 1999. While it was never going to be as turbo (see: dangerous) as Woodstock was, it made a major move to break the mold by booking acts based on their musical talent, as opposed to sheer radio popularity. Add in the fact that artists like Beck, Rage Against the Machine, and Tool were asked to accept deferred payment plans, and the festival was truly a D.I.Y. event for the best musicians and the fans who recognized their talent.
The music was off the beaten path, and so were the people who attended. Naturally this allowed for subcultures, be it metal, punk, or early-'00s hippies, to bring their style into the festival scene. Today when you head to Coachella's website, you're just as aware of the brand sponsors as you are of the acts themselves. They cosign the “counterculture cool” that things like Coachella inherently have, but this only makes the original brand (in this case, the festival) look like even more of a sellout.
H&M's sponsorship proves that mainline fashion brands also realize the potential market of music festival goers. With the release of “H&M Loves Coachella”, we've finally reached a point where the very base of modern fashion, the almost disposable and generic fast-fashion realm, is beginning to cater to the festival crowd. Considering that original festival goers were attending in protest of the norm, the fact that Coachella has now inspired a global apparel giant to produce clothes that thrive less off that uniqueness and more off being cheap and easy to wear—well, nothing could be further from the original style of Coachella and its fans. It's the Urban Outfitters-ization of clothing, and let's be honest, it's just not special anymore.
Cultural appropriation is part of the culture.
When your festival is known for its “exotic” fashion sense, generally that's the first sign of trouble. As people often do when given the opportunity to dress as crazy as their heart desires, they end up “borrowing” from other cultures. While an Aztec print here or there isn't necessarily a bad thing, trying to rock a Native American headdress is another thing entirely.
Yes the intention is to enjoy the freedom to dress as “bohemian chic” as possible, and that in itself is not a bad thing. But because of that style's loose association with “tribal” or East Asian cultures, people who have no place, or understanding of the cultures that inspired their outfit are wearing things that we would gawk at if we saw them on the street or on television. Let's put it this way, in the words of Chris Rock, “Just because you can do it, doesn't mean it's to be done.”
While it may be taboo to wear a Native American headdress, in the past couple years, that cultural “borrowing” has simply reemerged in the form of wearing bindis. Traditionally worn by the women of India and Southeast Asia, the small dot signifies love, prosperity, and the spiritual and religious “third eye." In the context of Coachella, it's the latest accessory in a long line of “exotic” accessories like bangles and body jewelry. This isn't to say that people can't respect or understand the tradition, but anyone can see the difference from wearing a bindi at a Hindu wedding and wearing a bindi while dropping acid and dancing to Jack White. Being bohemian doesn't mean that you need to needlessly embody another's culture for the sake of "festival attire."
It's no longer about the music, it's all about the 'gram.
Search #Coachella on Instagram. Go ahead, I'll wait. When you scroll through, what do you see? For a music festival, there seems to be a swell of “hippie chic” outfits and a serious lack of musicians shredding guitars or singing into microphones (and we're talking a general spread here, so chill out before you send over the Instagram feeds of your favorite music blogs). If social media is any indication, there's more of an emphasis on how lit your '70s inspired fedora and pre-faded band tank top are instead of how lit *insert band name here*'s performance was.
Maybe this is just a product of Indio's relative location to the celebrity haven of Los Angeles. Admittedly the ladies are more of a culprit in this regard, but there are plenty of bros in lax pinnies, $5 tank tops, and neon plastic sunglasses to earn the male Coachella attendees some chastisement.
Chances are, if you're not actually attending the event yourself, you likely spent the weekend experiencing the festival's activities and VIP parties through the Instagram feeds of celebs. Even the ban on selfie sticks hasn't curbed Coachella's self-image obsessed habits. And before we forget, taking pictures of a musician performing doesn't necessarily exempt you from slander. If the photo is very obviously a selfie of you and your outfit while an artist happens to be in the background, you're contributing to the stereotype, not avoiding it.
If Coachella is about “letting it all go,” or “letting out your weirdness” for the sake of music, creating an environment that places a heavy focus on your outfit (and one that looks like everyone else's, at that) flies in the face of both of those points. You're not really standing out with your weirdness if everyone else is wearing/doing/photographing the same things.