Best and Worst Dressed at Coachella 2024

The evolution of Coachella fashion, from camp to boring: a plea to go back to camp.

Is it a music festival or is it an influencer’s runway? Who’s to say?! Over the years, Coachella fashion has spanned from biker chick, to desert chic, to whimsical camp, to plain and mundane. In recent years, celebrities like Kendal Jenner and Hailey Bieber have inspired a more casual look for Coachella, a deviation from the ever-evolving, camp festival attire. This year, although the biker-boho-cool-girl trend reigned supreme, Instagram witnessed a return, even if slightly, to the marvelous and mysterious camp. From pastel feather coats, to bejeweled colorful leather jacks, to oddly-patterned corsets, camp crept back… thank God.

Starting with the bad (but not necessarily the ugly).

Although all the ladies rocking the below styles looked beautiful, it was indisputably homogenized. Look after look featured the same trendy belt, animal print, chunky boots, cowboy cat, and/or neutral-colored crop top. Everyone’s glam slayed, but after the inundation of uniformity, the look grew old fast. Freedom of creative expression has to be one of the best and most enticing things about music festivals. If everyone’s creative expression has become identical, then much of the fun has exited the chat.

Another bizarre trend from this year’s Coachella: mummification. So many girls wrapped themselves in bandages and gauze to create an enigmatic desert look straight out of ancient Egypt. Diaphanous headscarves were bountiful and random arm wraps kept no one warm at night. This look wasn’t exactly ugly, although, in a few years, many of its proponents might look back befuddled as to how and why they fell victim to its chokehold.

The good.

The influencers did not play this year. So many of them ate. So many of these ladies absolutely mopped the floor, left no crumbs, stupified the masses, desiccated the desert, the list goes on…

Per usual, the heavyweight champion was Alessandra Ambrosio, a former Victoria’s Secret model, along with various influencers who treated Coachella with the utmost fashion consideration and seriousness. The best looks deviated from the overall trend of mummy/boho/biker and combined whimsicality with color and novelty, or maximized the trend to an elite capacity. The best looks either threw caution to the wind and ran untamed through the streets with curated unique pieces, or took the trend and made it timeless.

The ugly. 

The Swifties might rear their heads on this one, but Taylor desperately needed a stylist. This look fell under the casual/hackneyed Coachella collection, and it needed some funk. It needed a breath of fresh air, a fun color, a hat, cute boots, a scarf… something… anything. Respectfully, Taylor also has a billion dollars. Perhaps minding fashion trends simply slipped her mind. Fair.

Fashion model Leomie Anderson adorned fuzzy sticky boobs, furry boots, and Chanel mittens for one of the strangest Coachella looks of 2024. Although the look broached unhinged, somehow it redeemed itself with a fun yellow blazer. Leomie is also drop-dead gorgeous so honestly, she could have probably rocked a wig, a bikini, and rain boots (not far from her actual look) and it somehow would have ended up hot. Impressive.

Hailey Bieber, please come get your man. He was acting a fool again at Coachella, rocking lord only knows what… Justin threw on a hoodie and strawberry-printed sweat pants but rather than simply put on the hoodie, he draped it over his shoulders and adorned just the hood. Classic Justin move: let Hailey steal the show and be questionably homeless in the background. And yes, Haley did steal the show. Pookie looked fire at Coachella this year.