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How Coachella fashion is shaping this summer’s trends

The dust will soon settle in the Northern California desert as another year of the Coachella music festival comes to a close.

The three-day festival held twice on separate weekends has become a serious destination not only for music lovers, but also for celebrities, influencers and fashionistas.

Articles related to style trends flooded the internet after the first weekend of this year’s festival and Google searches for ‘Coachella fashion 2024’ have increased by more than 2,000 percent worldwide in the past two weeks. Media channels from That of New York The cut into a fashion bible Fashion provided an analysis of the festival’s overall style trends, including in-depth information on what celebrities wore during the festival.

Coachella has the distinct advantage of being one of the “first big festivals of the year,” according to Vito Valentinetti, co-founder of the website Music Festival Wizard, which will allow it to set the tone for the coming season of live music.

“You get a lot of festival fashion from it because it’s the first of these big festivals, so there’s a lot of focus on style and it’s also in Los Angeles, so it’s stylish,” he shared. Newsweek. “You start to see some looks filter through.”

One of the brands pioneering fashion at Coachella is online clothing retailer Revolve. Held alongside Coachella, the exclusive Revolve Festival has become one of the hottest tickets of the weekend and is attended by some of the biggest names in fashion, including Kendall Jenner, Emily Ratajkowski, Leonardo DiCaprio and Hailey Bieber.

two women dancing at coachella
Festival-goers attend the 2024 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on April 19, 2024 in Indio, California. The festival is often seen as a fashion trendsetter.

Frazer Harrison/Getty Images for Coachella

Autumn Love, the editor and head of her eponymous “digital fashion destination” website, explained why Coachella set the tone not only for the season’s music festivals, but for summer style in general.

“Coachella isn’t just a music festival; it’s a fashion show in the desert. When it’s 90 degrees outside, it’s hard to figure out what to wear,” Love shared. Newsweek.

“People are paying close attention to Coachella fashion for ideas for summer outfits that are both cool and stylish. They’re watching how others deal with the heat with different layers, accessories and styles.”

Love added, “Additionally, fashion and music are closely linked. What you see at Coachella often reflects the music played and the overall atmosphere of the festival, which influences fashion trends for the season.”

Love also explained that Coachella attendees paid so much attention to their festival attire because the weekend was “all about being free and going full throttle when it comes to putting together outfits.”

“Everyone is there to show off their unique style and have fun with their looks, which makes it a perfect place to spot new trends,” she explained.

“There really is no right or wrong at Coachella – it’s about being yourself and dressing for the desert heat. This free-spirited atmosphere influences fashion because it encourages people to be bold and experiment with their outfits, setting trends who work through the summer.”

But some experts gave this year’s Coachella style a big thumbs up and could reflect a broader ambivalence about the festival. It had one of its worst years in terms of ticket sales, with the second week not selling out, and perhaps its title as fashion nirvana could follow suit.

“Unlike previous years, people seem particularly blasé about Coachella right now,” Hannah Jackson wrote British Vogue.

“It feels like there’s a similar inertia around festival fashion. With the trend cycle accelerating at warp speed, there doesn’t seem to be one dominant fashion trend that everyone agrees with.”

Jackson added: “These days there doesn’t seem to be a shared sartorial experience, which is part of what Coachella used to feel like an escape. Maybe one day we will be united in fashion again. But who knows if the festival will. recover in time?”

While Dazed declared that Coachella was having a “fashion identity crisis,” arguing that the festival’s fashion heyday, which began in the 2010s, is over. It argued that as many A-list celebrities opted for toned-down, incognito looks, while social media influencers and regular punters went over the top with camp looks, a ‘crossroads’ had emerged in fashion.

“The A-listers need to differentiate themselves from the influencers who still make that effort – they need to signal that they are different in some way. It’s no surprise then that the arbiters of a once dominant style are switching sides” , wrote Elliot Hoste.

“Of course fashion changes and people grow up and move on. It certainly wasn’t a decade ago. But part of this change is related to the need for some to distance themselves from those who try a little too hard. “