The Coachella Valley Music and Arts
Festival (commonly referred to as Coachella is an annual two-weekend, three-day
music and arts festival held at the Empire Polo Club in Indio, California,
located in the Inland Empire's Coachella Valley in the Colorado Desert. Founded
by Paul Tollett in 1999; the event features many genres of music, including
rock, indie, hip hop, and electronic dance music, as well as art installations
and sculptures. Across the grounds, several stages continuously host live
music. The main stages are: Coachella Stage, Outdoor Theatre, Gobi Tent, Mojave
Tent, and the Sahara Tent; a smaller Oasis Dome was used in 2006 and 2011,
while a new Yuma stage was introduced in 2013.
Coachella is one of the largest, most
famous, and most profitable music festivals in the United States. It attracts
bout 75,000 people each day, for an estimated attendance of 225,000 people per
weekend.
The other half of the festival is
dedicated to visual arts, including installation art and sculpture. Most of the
pieces are interactive, providing a visual treat to the attendees walking
amongst the festival grounds. Some of the works were featured at Burnisel and
involves participants from architecture schools, both local and international
Never mind the music and art Coachella
attracts a crowd full of hipsters, youth and rebel in the midst of random dust
storms. The fashion world will see and be seen at Coachella, getting ideas from
and pitching brands to 'influencers' on the grounds and at celeb-studded
parties
Whether you believe that festival
fashion is the best thing to happen to summer since the ice-cream truck or that
it's an evil plot dreamed up by the crop-top manufacturers and round-sunglasses
industry, it's definitely an aesthetic that's come to define our era. Our
parents might have had bikini tops, fringe, and Jimi Hendrix, but we have
bikini tops, fringe, and Arcade Fire.
The event has a huge influence in the
retail sector certain brands send clothes to celebrities ahead of time in hopes
they will be photographed wearing them, distribute promotional items, and
sponsor social events with the goal of generating traditional and social media
coverage, and, eventually, sales. At the same time, design teams are there,
studying the way festival-goers dress so they can turn ideas around and sell
them next year.
All this has developed around a festival
initially conceived as an alternative to corporatized live music experiences
with high-ticket prices. And it is the idea of that indie spirit that makes
Coachella so attractive to fashion brands such as H&M, Lacoste, Topshop,
Levi's, Havaianas and Ray-Ban. (Ironically, the festival itself has evolved
into a rather pricey event where guests must pay $269 for three-day tickets —
no more day passes — and they must move quickly; tickets sell out in a matter
of hours.)
Guess is sending 25 people from its
design team to Coachella, to take notes on what folks in the crowd are wearing.
(Kate Moss popularized the "festival chic" style of dressing at
Glastonbury in Somerset, England, in 2005, when she singlehandedly kicked off
the Hunter boot craze by wearing the wellies with sexy denim cutoffs.)
Coachella signifies to the world a
carefree, boho lifestyle — spring break for people with lots of disposable
income. Festival chic, with its carefully calculated,
just-rolled-out-of-the-tent look, has gained momentum with the growth of
Coachella, and it continues to influence fashion.
Forever 21 is selling a
"Coachella" tank top in neon, Navajo-inspired print. Topshop and ASOS
launched the shop the festival look just in time for Coachella. The Spring 2011
Diesel Black Gold collection (with lots of 1970s-tinged whip-stitched leather
jackets and lace-front skirts) was inspired by Coachella as well as the Spring
2011 Armani A|X collection advertising campaign ("The A|X Style
Festival") was shot at the Empire Polo Club, where the festival is held.
Armani AX is using its Neon Carnival event, now in its second year, to unveil
its new neon, aviator-style Solar Remix sunglasses with interchangeable brow bars,
to 1,500 guests.
That's why online retailers and fashion
magazines have been e-blasting celebrity-curated "Coachella
must-haves" and "Coachella packing lists," full of springy
merchandise designed to appeal to people who didn't even attend.
Local boutiques hoisted signs promoting
themselves as "Coachella Headquarters" (Flower crowns! Maxi-dresses!
Crop tops!) There were even Coachella diets, naturally.
Jimmy Choo, Puma and Levi's all hosted
events in L.A. the week of Coachella and the festival fashion carried over to
the red carpet at the Choo.08 celebration in Beverly Hills as well as the MTV
Movie Awards, where a rainbow-hued, Chanel-dressed Lupita Nyong'o mugged for
cameras with Jared Leto, who was dressed in a spring break-appropriate palm
tree print shirt and straw hat.
Ahead, see snaps of the best-dressed
festival-goers
