Coachella, the iconic annual music festival held in Indio, California is a staple for pop culture. It is a time that presents current fashion and art trends, can signify who the most popular celebrities of the year are and can also be a reflection of current events. Weekend one of this year’s festival was nothing short of this description, and has already caused some developing conversations on double standards in the music industry.

The Music

Sabrina Carpenter was a major highlight of this year’s festival, with this being her first year headlining, she hinted at her performance being “The most ambitious show she’s ever done.” Her set included a fictional city called “Sabrinawood” which followed a story of a girl gaining fame in the industry throughout the set, while making many pop culture references like scenes from “Dirty Dancing,” playing clips from “Psycho” and “The Wizard of Oz,” and having some familiar faces on stage such as Will Ferrell, Sam Elliot and Susan Sarandon. Sarandon, who played an older Sabrina Carpenter in the set, has recently come under fire in Hollywood for speaking out about Gaza. The amount of effort put into this show has created discourse on social media, even with Carpenter coming under fire when she seemed to have criticized a cultural call done at her concert. Carpenter’s set for this coming weekend has been extended 10 minutes, with some speculating that Madonna will make an appearance to promote her new album.

Another artist that made headlines for their show is Justin Bieber. Bieber, who hasn’t performed at Coachella since 2022, had a very unique approach to this year’s performance, with air playing his computer screen and playing requests, instead of having a formal setlist and performance. Although Bieber has faced some criticism for this performance, with the conversation about the gap in effort expected from female popstars compared to male popstars, lots of people have grown fond of the style of this set. A popular moment from this show was when Bieber was singing his hit song “Beauty and the Beat.” In the beginning, Bieber was singing in a very low-pitched and low effort tone, but suddenly switched to the singing voice fans know and love, giving some people throwbacks to 2012 when the song first came out.

Many older artists made an appearance at the festival like Smashing Pumpkins, who joined Sombr to perform their hit song “1979,” which marks another milestone for Sombr in entering the rock/alternative scene. History was made this past weekend when Karol G headlined the festival for the first time ever, marking the first Latina women to headline at Coachella in its 27 year run.

The Fashion

While mainly popular because of the music, Coachella is also seen as a major tell for fashion trends at the moment, with every outfit marking the period of time and many outfits actually becoming famous. Because of the extreme heat of the California desert, people get creative with how to stay fashionable but cool.

Something very prevalent in the fashion of Coachella is 60s inspired styles. While looking at the outfits you can notice a lot of fringe on boots, shirts and skirts with big belts. There’s also a crochet craze, while a very dense fabric is used, the large gaps in most crochet clothes make for a cooling layering piece. Flowy/laced skirts have also become popular, bringing a strong Fleetwood Mac essence to the festival.

Weekend one was already full of monumental moments for the music industry and pop culture, through music, lifestyle and fashion. Although it seems like the best Coachella could ever give, week two has a lot in store in terms of surprises and performances that are sure to influence the music industry and public in general for the rest of the festival season.