.jpg "What the Fashion at Coachella Says About the State of the Festival")
There was a time, pre-Beychella—as in, Beyoncé’s historic 2018 Coachella headline performance—when the emblematic California music festival was known for its freewheeling, bohemian sensibility: A sun-drenched American counterpart to England’s muddy, gritty Glastonbury. That is no longer the case.
Instead, Coachella today is representative of an America transformed by the Covid-19 pandemic, Donald Trump, and well, yes, Queen Bey. It’s about scale, marketing, content, and influence—and influencers. The biggest tell is its lineup of headliners, which each year goes more mainstream and more pop. This time around, it’s Sabrina Carpenter, Justin Bieber, and Karol G who have the honor. What they wore last week—and what people wore to see them, and possibly what they have in store this weekend for round two—is where Coachella’s transformation has become most evident.
Beyoncé was the first Black woman to headline Coachella, and her performance, which broke viewership and streaming records for the festival and spawned a Netflix documentary, quickly became the new standard. “Homecoming” paid tribute to historically Black colleges and universities, and its costumes were created by the then designer of Balmain, Olivier Rousteing, a cunning pop culture dynamo who is most famous for being at the heart of the famed “Balmain Army” movement from the early 2010s. Since then, Coachella performances have grown bigger in scale and showmanship, and their look has changed too. They now rival the staging of a high-profile world tour, and their costuming is closer to the runway than it’s ever been before.
Take Carpenter, who was outfitted by Dior in four different made-to-measure looks for her performance. The pop star is not an official ambassador of the house, but has been wearing the work of its new designer, Jonathan Anderson, since he was heading up Loewe. The two other times I can recall a single brand outfitting a performance by a headliner was Harry Styles in Gucci by Alessandro Michele in 2018 and Lana Del Rey in Dolce & Gabbana in 2024. This is even a step up for Carpenter herself, who, in her most recent tour, wore a variety of brands, most prominently Victoria’s Secret.
A splashy partnership like this one is no longer an anomaly but expected from most performers. They’re now lucrative opportunities. Brands are eager for the clout, and who couldn’t use a check?
