Festival fashion is officially back after a decade-long hiatus thanks to 'Daisy Jones,' Coachella, celebrities, and influencers
Festival fashion is officially back after a decade-long hiatus thanks to 'Daisy Jones,' Coachella, celebrities, and influencers
- It's officially music festival season, which means the return of festival fashion.
- Attendees at Coachella 2023 showed up in their festival best, which meant anything from cowboy boots to denim-on-denim.
- Experts say festival fashion is making a comeback after the pandemic canceled music festivals and the outfits are inspired by shows like "Daisy Jones & The Six."
Music festivals like Coachella have been around for decades, but it wasn't until the 2010s that festival fashion as we know it today really took off
In a 2021 deep dive on the history of festival fashion, Refinery29 fashion editor Georgia Murray catalogued how styles had changed from Woodstock and Glastonbury in the 1960s and '70s to Coachella and Afropunk in the present day.
While early festival fashion was all about escapism and self-expression, she wrote, somewhere around the 2010s, it became commercialized amid the rise of Instagram and then the rise of Instagram influencers.
The clothes festival-goers wore took on a new level of importance: looking good on social media.
Brands were quick to hop on board the festival fashion trend, which throughout the 2010s, really meant one thing: boho chic.
Everyone from influencers to celebrities to regular attendees started crafting a slew of meticulously planned festival looks — after all, festivals often last multiple days, so attendees required multiple outfits.
In the early- to mid-2010s, the boho-chic trend dominated music festivals. As Murray wrote in Refinery29, the original Woodstock-era hippie style was reincarnated as "mass-produced flower crowns, glitter, printed pac-a-macs [raincoats] and 'wacky' sunglasses."
Fast-fashion brands like Boohoo, ASOS, and Nasty Gal started offering their own festival collections, and e-commerce shopping destination Revolve even began hosting its own "Revolve Festival" at Coachella. The invite-only event — which has its own musical performances, free booze, and shopping experiences — quickly became the premiere venue for influencers and celebrities to see and be seen.
When the pandemic hit, it canceled most major music festivals two years in a row — and by extension, most festival fashion
Even when festivals returned in 2022, it wasn't immediately obvious that the fashion component had returned as well.
Research conducted by market intelligence firm EDITED found that US Google searches for "festival fashion" didn't return to pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that interest in Coachalla's signature "desert bohemian aesthetic" had dropped off. There were signs that consumers weren't buying as much either, like when fast-fashion brand Fashion Nova heavily discounted its Western-themed festival collection ahead of the second weekend of Coachella in 2022.
And while influencers like Hailey Bieber and Kendall Jenner still showed up to festivals, they did so in plain tank tops and cargo pants — a far cry from the flower crowns, body glitter, and crocheted maxi dresses of yore.
According to EDITED, festival fashion and influencer culture were "due for a post-pandemic reset."
But as life continues to return to normal, festival style trends have come roaring back.
Heather Ibberson, retail analyst at EDITED, told Insider by email that for a lot of people, the return to some sense of normalcy still feels new, and that's partly what's fueling the festival fashion trend.
"Consumers are still eager to take the opportunity to dress up and get outside for some fun with friends," she said.
Ibberson also credited pop culture for driving the trend's resurgence. Shows like Amazon Prime's "Daisy Jones & The Six," a series about a fictional 1970s band loosely based on Fleetwood Mac, "has boosted '70s fashion as a hot ticket trend," Ibberson said.
Since the show premiered in March, Pinterest searches for "bohemian outfits" jumped 85%, according to EDITED data.
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