Switched on Pop - How Coachella took the Woodstock look

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

The co-hosts of The Cut, Jazmin Aguilera and B.A. Parker, think deeply and incisively about fashion. For this special episode of Switched on Pop — the first in our three-part miniseries about summer festivals — we invited the hosts of The Cut, Jazmin Aguilera and B.A. Parker, as our honorary co-hosts to help us break down the connections between festival fashion, music, and culture. With the additional help of Dr. Lorynn Divita, Associate Professor of Apparel Merchandising at Baylor University, we dissect the commercialization of festival fashion, and how it could lead to some festival goers feeling alienated from the musical experience they love. And, of course, we all discuss the iconic looks -- and performances -- of two of the most quintessential music festivals: Woodstock and Coachella. MORE 3 Days of Peace & Music & Fashion : A History of Festival Dress from Woodstock to Coachella Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switched-on-Pop. I'm

songwriter Charlie Harding. And I'm musicologist, Nate Sloan. And I'm wannabe musician and co-host of The Cut, Jasmine Aguilera. And I'm music enthusiast and co-host of The Cut, B.A. Parker. So we love The Cut. It's New York Mags podcast about fashion, culture, power, and so much more. and on Switched on Pop, we're kicking off this mini-series about summer festivals. And when I think about music festivals today, I don't just think about the music. It's also about the image, the looks, really the iconic fashion from festivals starting with Woodstock all the way to Coachella. And so we wanted to recruit your expertise from the cut to help us think about how music and fashion inform each other in these spaces. Is this something that resonates with you?

Yeah, and actually it kind of feels like in some ways, fashion is the main event at music festivals rather than the music. So I went a couple of years ago to Afropunk, and I was really excited because, you know, Black Punk kids, that's my jam. That's my heart. So I sing all these amazing outfits. Lots of fishnet, lots of Doc Martins, lots of septum piercing,

just beauty and excess, but it was like this kind of homogenized view of uniqueness that kind of took me out of it. And I thought I looked good. But I'm not trying to perform fashion in this way. And so that made me uncomfortable. And it may feel like I wasn't really supposed to be there because there was this performative nature to it that took away from the actual performances on the stage. It feels like concerts have become, like, church in the sense that, like, you go there partly to be seen and to dress up as, like, part of the thing. And, like, everybody looks amazing.

But also to worship. I mean, that's also. It's an also. That's the point, though. It's like, that's a whole part of it now. And it looks awesome, but it's just, like, they've created that. category of fashion and now it's become really commercialized. It's really taken away from this communal experience where we're all coming together to listen to artists that we all love

and this like beautiful moment. It kind of alienates people from that experience because it's like now it's about who can be the coolest looking person there. Or, you know, it's just kind of like tainted in a way. That's what happened to Parker. She's going to Afropunk to have this vibe, this experience. And then she sort of feels like this outsider because she doesn't have a septum piercing. I just want to get drunk and listen to Gary Clark Jr. Is that so wrong? I don't think that's wrong in any context. And that's kind of what we want to talk about today. So we're going to do that by going through two music festivals, maybe the two music festivals, Woodstock and Coachella. Love it. And hopefully we'll have some complimentary skill sets here,

because when it comes to fashion, well, one time I was walking down the street and I overheard this woman talking to her friend as I walked by, and she said, that guy dresses exactly like my grandfather. Nice. Okay, well, depending on who your grandfather was, that could actually be really cool. She didn't mean it as a compliment, but I appreciate that, Jasmine. So I think we might be sort of lacking in the fashion front, but maybe we can offer some musical insight, and you can bring that fashion knowledge when our powers combine, we can come away with a better understanding of what it's like to go to a festival and why it is.

that way? And I guess my question is like, where should we start in this conversation? Let's start our journey in the summer of 1969. There's a lot happening in the U.S. at this time. You've got Vietnam, civil rights movement, Stonewall. Also, this counterculture movement, we all know and love the hippies. A lot of the hippies were comprised of these middle and upper class kids who chose instead to reject the the values that their parents attempted to instill in them in the really conformist 1950s. And they chose a different path entirely. This is Dr. Lauren DeVita.

She's Associate Professor of Apparel Merchandising at Baylor University. She wrote an article called Three Days of Peace and Music and Fashion, a history of festival dress from Woodstock to Coachella. Lauren says that this different path that the hippies walk, it was a rejection of consumerism. They were trying out these sort of anti-capitalist ideas. People were forming communes across America, and Earth Day was first celebrated right around that time.

But in order to show anti-consumer ethos, you did things like either buying their clothes at places like Army-Navy surplus stores, hence the popularity of the bell of bottom, or from thrift stores. and back then clothing was made to last a lot longer than it does today. So it was very easy to get clothing from decades before that was in usable shape or from import stores because they really like the colorful aspect of it, as well as that sort of association of being close to nature like so many non-Western cultures have. Native American influences, Indian influences, and also the Catholic.

So the hippies look like something, right? Like, there's a hippie vibe that reflected their philosophy. Let's take a look at that. Nate and Charlie, we sent you this article from Vogue Paris with a bunch of photos of what people were wearing at Woodstock. Let's all just pull that up together. One of the things that occurs to me looking at these images is that even at the original festival, there were dominant fashion trends. like fringe, tie-dye, old jeans. And then there's, of course, a couple of squares that showed up to the festival.

So this would have been me. And they're still wearing their heritage brand coming from their city job and are unbuttoning their shirt to look like they can try to fit in. And it's kind of working. But they definitely aren't following the trend. They don't have the cool shirt. Nobody's giving them the high five. Yeah, here we go. Even the quarterore guy looks like he's having fun at the playground with all the people who are up to

no good and in a big pile of people having a good time. The thing about this is like there is a vibe. Like there's definitely fashion choices, but it doesn't seem like people have made fashion their priority in this festival. It feels like more happenstance than intention for me. Yeah. So I think it's worth pausing here for a second and thinking about some of the ways that the themes and fashion that you're talking about are also occurring musically at Woodstock.

Some of the themes that the main performers are dealing with are the Vietnam conflict and the civil rights movement, anti-capitalism, and the rejection of the American dream. You could look at an artist like Joan Baez, who starts this story talking about her husband, David Harris. He gets arrested as an anti-war activist imprisoned in July of 69 for refusing to report for duty, and she tells a whole story about it. The last time I saw David, he was in the backseat of the car, and they handcuffed him, and they were so anxious to drive out of there in a hurry. I think they thought we were all going to lie down in front of the car or something. But also sings folk songs like Joe Hill about this labor activist, Joe Hill. The copper bosses killed you, Joe. They shot you Joe says I...

Makes me think of lots of other songs as well, like Country Joe McDonald. I feel like I'm fixing to die rag. This commentary on the meeting of war. And you know, just in the same way that people are showing up kind of unexpected and maybe not wearing quite the right thing. You had musical moments that reflected that same kind of improvisational nature. Makes me think of Richie Haven song, Freedom based off of the spiritual motherless child, which was frequently sung during the civil rights movement. Yeah, and then I think one of the iconic moments where this all comes together, politics, music, fashion, is Jimmy Hendrix's performance of the Star Spangled Banner. Earlier, we were talking about some of these attendees wearing military surplus repurposing these clothes, like Jimmy Hendrix is repurposing the national anthem, which itself is very associated with, like, militaristic displays of nationalism.

But he turns it into something completely. different. Something in the spirit of the 60s performed on electric guitar with whammy bar, slides, distortion. I think it's as powerful to listen to now as it must have been then. You know, if we can pull up this Vogue article here, we can see Jimmy Hendrix looking like the rock god that he is with a amazing light blue suede jacket with fringe on the sleeves and these kind of light wash blue bell bottoms. A man who could get it. A man who definitely could. I'm super jealous of this friend's jacket and I wanted it in my life.

It's powerful. Totally. It gives me the sense at once of someone really laid back and perhaps countercultural, but also someone who takes what they're doing seriously. Like, this is a well-put-together ensemble. It seems to be as loose and frayed and moving in the wind as the feedback and his electric guitar feels very fitting for the music that he's playing. Yeah, it's almost like a sartorial analogy to that spontaneous, semi-improvised Ritchie Haven set we were talking about.

You know, there's the sense of spontaneity and just like letting things happen and seeing what that's like that pervades both the music and the fashion here. The thing about this picture is like it doesn't look like he bought this jacket for, Woodstock? Again, happenstance over intention. You just show up in the thing that like you just like, I'm going to throw this on, which is like the total opposite of large music festivals today. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top.

of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Ready? Ready? Do not sugarcoat something for me. No, no. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Okay, but Real Talk living in Southern California, weeks or months before Coachella happens, I now get targeted Instagram ads of festival retailers who are recreating that sort of

woodstock vibe in a contemporary way. They are very much trying to make sure that I am buying this stuff and ready to go to the festival ahead of time. But I mean like Coachella wasn't always like this. The organization that puts on Coachella is called Golden Voice, right? And when they set out to do the first Coachella in 1999, they then ended up being compared to Woodstock 99, this festival where things went horribly wrong. The fires and the chaos brought hundreds of state police to the scene. Everybody wants to get nuts. Everybody wants to get crazy. And they just got a little out of hands that I pulled down the walls around the speaking house. total devastation. People got hurt. People died. And this was all looming large in the background. But Golden Voice wanted Coachella to be different. And since it was the first Coachella, there was no template for what to wear. You might say, well, why Woodstock? Well, we were looking for

guides, right? So what do we do? We go to the original. Consider the source. And so that's why in those really early photos, you've got all these maxi dresses, beads, and floppy hats. So I opened up this other page that had the evolution of looks from 2001 to now. And if you look at some of the pictures, you go from somebody wearing, you know, a pretty detailed pattern, but still, you know, kind of a nice outfit that you could wear anywhere. Maybe a tank top and some printed pants. And then as the years go on, it gets a little bit more specific. There are band t-shirts, kind of ripped up rocker looks. Then there's like a big pink hat.

Oh, I forgot about the Donners. And what ended up happening is very quickly that style started to kind of spiral out of control. People realized cool people go to this event. And so people started going there looking to take photos of cool people. And then once people started realizing, if I go to this event and I stand out, I can get my photo taken, the ultimate validation, right? And so it's become a lot more performative because you're going to dress an outlandish clothes in the hopes of getting noticed and in the hopes of being seen and in the hopes of being photographed. And over time, it feels like that increasingly became the point of Coachella. Less about the music and more about a specific kind of fashion.

I do have another listicle for you. This is just the collection of Coachella outfits throughout the years. Oh, my God. Okay, so the first image we see It's for the 2011 Coachella and is a woman wearing yellow carnations, yellow daisies I don't know what kind of flowers those are Yellow daisies on her breasts

Yep If I could, I would Really? I've never been this free But it's also like, are they ever going to wear this again? Yeah Like this feathered, glued Victoria Secrets bras

Is this lady ever going to wear this again? I mean, I would actually wear this some of these outfits, to be honest with you. I would. That I could tell. But I'm also an extra person. So, like, I would go to Coachella to be seen. Like, that would be it.

But then I would be, like, I would feel obligated to go and listen to the show and not be seen. And then it would, it would tear me apart. One of the things that occurs to me looking at these images from Coachella is that it's a lot more about bodies and the presentation of our bodies and the things that slightly adorn it. Whereas the images from Woodstock look like almost candid actuality shots that, like, they weren't from professional fashion photographers. And given that pretty much every image here that I'm looking at has every person is just all skin. There's definitely a part of me would be like, I don't think I'd feel comfortable going there and wearing the things that I have to not wear in order to be seen. Yes. Oh, I would love to be naked.

I know you do, honey. But there's also, no, these are, but these are impractical nude people. Like this lady's in a bikini and like a Davy Crockett hat. Like that's not, there's a disconnect. Those are two different seasons. Yeah. There's a strong sense of particularly being seen and loudness. You know, our whole visual culture has become about loudness and attention grabbing.

I say this to someone who wears mostly grays and tans. I mean, I get it. I say it as a person who wears every single color in the rainbow. And that's why I mentioned the festivals. Like, what is the point of music festivals these days? Because it isn't what it was when it was Woodstock. These days, it definitely feels like you go there to be seen. And that's what makes this fashion.

That's why this girl right here in 2015 is wearing a bright red fur vest in what looks like a summertime meadow. You make it so that people want to stop and take a picture of you. and you make it so that you can take pictures of yourself and you can remember yourself. Like I don't want to come out of this being judgy on the fact that people want to wear whatever, like they want to dress up.

I want to encourage that. I would encourage more fashion in the music industry, in fact. If we could go back to glam rock, where you could see every outline of a man's body, I would enjoy that. I would like to see more lycra, more spandex. More boys and craptops. Mm-hmm.

So it's not just that when you combine these two forces and pervert it with consumerism, when it's no longer about the art and the aesthetic, but it's like about the clout that you can get from the art and the aesthetic. That's where it turns into something else. That's where it kind of feels tainted, where Parker feels uncomfortable, where the music seems like it takes a backseat to fashion. Doesn't it seem like, I mean, if we're talking about festivals being a representation of their cultures in their fashion and in their music,

it seems that both of these festivals are exactly of their time. To your point, Judge is like, I have no beef with people looking exactly if they want to, showing off, looking great, knowing that their image is going to be seen around the world because the entire thing is live streamed around the world. Like, it makes sense. You know that going in. And so, yeah, it's worth getting dressed up. It's like, I wouldn't go to the Met Gala and wear my khaki shorts. That would be a bad choice. Unless you want to make a true statement.

Thanks, Parker. I mean, I feel like this is the key context for the shift that we're seeing in fashion. probably that we'll be hearing in music is that corporatization. Like AEG, a huge multinational entertainment company bought a major stake in Coachella in 2004. So that is not just an independent music festival. This is part of a consolidated corporation. This is big business. This is not a bunch of hippies gathering at Yazger's farm.

And, you know, I think it probably changes the festival experience and it changes the kind of meaning of the music. Is there space for that kind of political message, for that kind of community building, for that era defining moment? Probably not. Yeah, like this is exactly what we're talking about. It also changes the meaning of the fashion. Like, this communal space has now become something fractured. And so, like, if, like, if you don't want to play the game, that's when you start to feel like it's not a place for you. Like, it's not good for the music.

It's not good for the fashion. No one wins. I do think there's an important exception here. I can imagine we're all thinking it. It's B.Cella. Yes. Okay. So some people are calling it Baychella, which is fine.

They're entitled to their wrong pronunciation. It is B.chella because her name is Beyonce. Baychella is not a thing. She's the Queen B, not Queen Bay. And B-E-Y. though looks like Bay is B, but, you know, live your life. Preach it, Parker. Take us back to that wonderful moment in 2018 when Beyonce headlined the festival.

The beauty and the wonder of Beachella cannot be overstated. It is incredible, not just from like a purely entertainment standpoint, but she actually did something truly powerful on the stage. She's putting on the show that draws so much from black culture. And you can see this in the homecoming documentary. She used the iconography of an historically black college in like a homecoming, which is a big deal within black communities and within historically black spaces.

It's like a big deal on college campuses. And so to see that for the first time was pretty mind-blowing because it was sharing something that is very personal and very beautiful within black spaces. when we first see Beyonce walking out on stage in this epic outfit that looks like it's inspired by Nefertiti, ancient Egyptian queen, and of course get the incredible performance with the HBCU-inspired marching band, which I bought a t-shirt from Beyonce's website, like a gold, yellow shirt with like the fake Beyonce Greek letters on the front. This is great. This is exactly what Beyonce is so good at doing, realizing the power of a big stage. It might seem like Coachella is sold out an overly commercial, but she knows that there are so many eyes on her and she can use that opportunity of attention to make a powerful, profound statement about identity and race, and not just to the concert goers, but to the millions of people who are going to see it later on a Netflix documentary or who are even streaming in live at that very

moment or the people who are going to buy the sweatshirt and carry on that moment then and forever after. This conversation just brings home how inextricably linked music and fashion are. When you listen to this performance, you can't separate it from the visuals. And you want to make both of them part of your world. You want to have the music. You want to have the fashion. It's like that memory is synced together.

They are pretty much inseparable. How do you top bechella? It's not going to happen. You don't. You can't. You shouldn't. No more. Shut it down.

Yeah. I don't think there's anybody else who could really pull it off in the same way. And anybody who even tries gets their feelings hurt. Yeah. It's just disrespectful. But if we are going to steal looks from Beyonce for Coachella, I mean, there is a picture of her as some Coachella in booty shorts and a sex pistil's t-shirt. And by all means, take that. Like wear that left and right.

This episode of Switched on Pop was produced by Alex Kauffelman, B.A. Parker, Jasmine Aguilera, Nate Sloan, Charlie Harding, and Megan Lubin. We're edited by Jolly Myers, engineered by Brandon Farland, social media by Abby Barr, and illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Our executive producers are Nash-Karwa and Hanna Rosen, or a member of the Vox Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture. Thanks to the good people at JBL for hooking us up with the gear we need

to make our show while we're on the road visiting friends and family this summer. be sure to tune in next week we're traveling to the opposite pole of the summer festival spectrum in terms of fashion in terms of sound but i think we're going to have some pretty astonishing insights nonetheless so check us out you don't want to miss it you can find switchdon pop anywhere you get podcasts spotify apple google the other ones our website switchdonpop dot com and finally hit us up on social media at switchdon pop pop We want to know what you're wearing when you hit those festival grounds, okay? We'll catch you next Tuesday. And until then, thanks for listening.