After a two-year, COVID-19-induced break, California’s most famous event, Coachella, made its return last weekend. The music festival’s 2022 headliners like Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and The Weeknd drew in a crowd of around 250,000 attendants. The festival-goers were there to appreciate live music as much as they were to showcase their takes on festival fashion, takes that are too often culturally insensitive.
Coachella was founded in 1999, and its creation marked the rise of the “boho-chic” fashion trend. In an attempt to accommodate the festival’s dessert environment, attendees began dressing in flowy maxi dresses, small crochet tops and neutral sandals. Their innocent efforts to diminish the ever-present heat developed into a universal code of fashion for music festivals worldwide.
Before “boho-chic” arrived on the festival fashion scene, live music events were consumed by a stoner-esque, Woodstock clothing style. Tie-dye, patchwork and all forms of denim ruled the 1900s festival setting. Even in the 1960s when events like Woodstock and Glastonbury formed, fashion was always the center of attention.
Although Coachella’s dress-code has always remained in the “boho-chic” realm, celebrities redefine the meaning of the term each annual Coachella. Through updating their social media consistently during the festival, celebrities and influencers keep fans up to date with the Coachella trends of the year.
As the festival has progressed over its 23-year stretch, the focus has become more about sharing one’s wild looks on Instagram and less about listening to the featured artists. Social media users look forward to seeing how models like Kendall Jenner or Hailey Bieber will show up to the festival. Influencers like Emma Chamberlain and James Charles have made a name for themselves with their innovative Coachella outfit posts.
However, Coachella’s attendants, celebrities included, often take their “innovative” looks too far. Music festivals worldwide have become a hotspot for cultural appropriation within fashion.
Cultural appropriation is the inappropriate adoption of cultural practices or elements from a minority group. In Coachella’s case, people of majority groups sport pieces of clothing or accessories specific to a minority culture at the festival, and disrespect the meaning of the item in doing so.
Vanessa Hudgens, the actress known as the “Queen of Coachella,” has committed cultural injustices multiple times while designing a “boho-chic” outfit. In 2014 Hudgens donned an Indian headdress, an article awarded to Indian chiefs after completing acts of bravery. Hudgens abated the lifetime of hard work Indian chiefs put into earning each feather of their headdress by casually wearing the piece for a weekend event.
Hudgens popularized the Indian headdress so much that the U.K.’s Glastonbury festival banned the usage of the cultural item on their grounds.
Sophomore Natalie Weyrick is familiar with Hudgen’s situation and added her perspective on the fashion mistake, “She doesn’t know the meaning behind it and she probably didn’t do research about it. She’s just wearing it because she thought “Oh this looks cool, so I’m going to wear it”, but in reality it’s a real part of someone’s culture.”
Jenner debuted a Coachella party in a nath, a large nose ring connected to an earring that Hindu women wear on their wedding day to honor Devi Parvati, the goddess of marriage. Jenner has no connections to Hinduism, so her offhand use of the nath replaced its spiritual significance with the amusement of a majority group.
As celebrities continue to poorly influence festival fashion, Coachella’s average attendants are pushed towards partaking in cultural appropriation too. Music festivals are a place to escape and take on new personas for a weekend, but taking on a new style is completely different from ignorantly adopting a new culture.
Allowing and encouraging cultural appropriation at music festivals continues the cycle of oppression minority groups are constantly facing. When a majority group colonizes cultural pieces like headdresses or naths, it further marginalizes the culture the pieces were stolen from.
Coachella’s influencers are given credit for creating new trends in fashion with their tasteless style choices. Therefore, a power gap is created between the two groups, and the marginalized party is left feeling helpless.
With as much effort festival-goers put into designing the perfect outfit to match the vibe of the occasion, it should be simple to add completing research regarding the significance of clothing pieces to one’s festival agenda.
Coachella is rightfully one of the most anticipated events of the year, but perhaps it is time to return the spotlight to the music and say goodbye to “boho-chic.”
