All The Biggest Fashion Trends From Coachella 2022, Ranked
Okay, self-designated arbiters of generational taste, we hope you're ready: Coachella just happened, and the fashion trend reports are IN.
Coachella is one of the biggest musical events of the year in the US, but that's not all it is. A massive cultural gathering place for all the free-spirited, financially fortunate, music-loving young adults out there. Naturally, at an event like that, everyone is going to try to look their best - and as a result, over the years its become one of the biggest unofficial fashion shows in the world.
Now, we know enough to know that the looks at Coachella today will be the counterculture fashion looks of tomorrow - mainstream fashion has Fashion Week, and the avant garde have this.
Popsugar has already published a list of 14 of the biggest trends they were seeing from the photos of this weekend - and so I, one of those self-appointed arbiters I mentioned earlier, am going to tell you how great I think they are, in order.
This is all completely arbitrary, but so are fashion trends, so that seems fair. Here's all of the biggest fashion trends from Coachella 2022, ranked.
14: Chunky Headbands
Okay - in theory, these look good. Chunky headbands that come up more than an inch or two off the head almost become like hats that you can attach more securely - they create a similar shape on your head to the hairstyle created by Bump Its about a decade ago. This is a hard trend to say yes or no to, as whether or not it looks good largely depends on what the actual headband looks like - but it earned its place this low on my list because, let's face it, headbands are already uncomfortable to wear - adding more weight and mass will definitely not fix that.
13: Feather Accessories
I don't have anything against feather accessories, really - I just feel like they've been a "new" fashion trend every other year since, like 2012. It's been 10 years. You can't be a cutting edge fashion trend for ten years. I still remember Miley Cyrus sporting these back when she still looked like Hannah Montana. That's how old this trend is.
12: Hair Gems
The hair gems thing is cool and all - really, it is! You just stick these tiny little rhinestones into your hair and voila, it's sparkly! I love the way it looks.
But the way it looks is not my issue with it - it's the fact that you have to apply these by adhering them to your head with a straightener, and then afterwards if you brush your hair or anything, you run the risk of them coming out.
It's a cute look, it just seems a little too high-maintenance to ever be practical for anything in a regular person's life besides like, a wedding or a prom.
11: Lipstick-Shaped Nails
So no, this does not mean your nails are shaped like lips. "Lipstick shaped" refers to the tips of these nails - they're slanted like a fresh tube of lipstick.
I'm not a huge fan of overly long, stylized nails in general - I find the difference in texture when touching everything very distracting - but as far as they do go, this is a really, really cool one. It sort of makes your fingers look like they have the blades of a tiny sword on them. Badass.
10: Colorblock Eyeshadow
Color Block eyeshadow is exactly what it sounds like: You simply create your eyeshadow look out of large, flat blocks of color - sometimes playing with empty space, sometimes using more than one color, sometimes just using black, but ALWAYS big and chunky.
This is a cool look - it feels very modern and new, not a copy of something people did a few decades ago. It's playing with geometry and pigment - as well as our expectations - which is what makes it so fun.
That said, it's an incredibly Bold look, and it often doesn't do a whole lot to actually highlight the eyes, so I'm guessing it's going to look fairly dated in a couple years.
9: Copper-Colored Hair
I love the copper hair trend so much - pretty much everyone can look good with this hair color, and it's got so much variability, even from shade to shade. It adds a lot of dimension to a hairdo - plus, it's the perfect complement to rose gold accessories (which many trend-followers probably have a lot of at this point.)
Honestly, the only reason this isn't higher up on my list of favorites is it's not really a "new" trend for Coachella by any stretch of the imagination. Copper hair has been "in" for well over a year now - which is probably why there was so much of it at the festival!
8: Butterfly Clips
YES. BRING BACK THESE 90s GEMS.
It was very popular for teens and tweens in the 90s to use these cutesy little plastic butterfly hairclips to pin back tiny sections of their hair. Now it seems we're bringing it back - which I love, because I still remember being a little, little kid and wishing I could style my hair the way Hillary Duff did on Lizzie McGuire. Now I can!!
Plus, I, like the color-block eyeshadow, I love all the whimsy this trend can add to an everyday outfit.
7: Brown Lipstick
I have to admit it, brown was an unexpected lipstick trend for me - we've been going so bold lately that I assumed the next thing to be "in" would be like a blue or orange lip or something.
But the brown lip is nice - especially with some of the bolder eye makeup looks on this list, a nice warm brown will do wonders to even out your face - plus, unlike pink or some of the bolder lip colors out there, which tend to pair better with some skintones than others, brown looks good on literally everyone.
6: Pixie Undercut
This is also not a new trend - on women. This undercut look has been a big one for men since around 2016, and now it seems the ladies and theydies out there are catching on to its fun - the short sides give you all the ease of care that crew cut does, but leaving it long on top gives you something to style and play with, and can help you soften the look as much as you please.
I'm all for feminizing traditionally masculine haircuts - androgyny is frankly sexy, in my opinion, and too many things have been divided by gender historically anyways. What reason do we have for doing it to our hair?
5: Mismatched French Manicure
I love things that don't match, so this trend absolutely got me. With a mismatched French manicure, you ask for a french tip, but instead of going for white, you choose a few different colors and alternate nails - maybe even adding a design or two.
The fact that it's a french tip rather than a full manicure means that this mismatched style isn't too overwhelmingly busy for a canvas as tiny as ten fingernails, but still captures all the fun of choosing a bunch of different nail colors.
4: Baby Braids
Baby braids are really just two tiny braids that you do at the front of your head, usually on either side of a center part. It's a sweet and fun trend that adds a little interest to a plain hairstyle without requiring too much effort - but still looks adorable.
They had me at "not too much effort." For how little work it is to do two tiny braids right in front of your face, the result is striking.
3: Eye Gems
All the fun of hair gems - and all the whimsy of color block eyes - without any of the issues! Eye gems are, in my opinion, a much better version of this rhinestone trend. You don't have to brush your eyes during the day like you brush your hair.
Plus, the effect this creates when you take a step back is ethereal - having something that sparkly near your eyes makes it look like you're crying diamonds or something. (The same goes for that trend of putting glitter under your eyes, a trend Zoe Kravitz really popularized when she wore it in The Batman.)
2: Colorful Hair Streaks
Besides copper hair, there was another hair trend present at Coachella - that of having colorful streaks all over your head, some brighter than others. Whether they're bright blue highlights or dark red lowlights - or just streaks of purple - this simple trend screams fun the same way most of the other trends from this year do.
Am I biased? Admittedly, yes. (My hair has had pink highlights for a month and a half.) But also, I'm glad this trend is back in general. Life is short, and we've been locked inside for two years - maybe everyone who ever wanted to color their hair but was held back by now-outdated rules about professionalism is finally going for it now.
Regardless of the reason, I think the world will be a whole lot brighter with all these extra colors in it.
1: Reverse Eyeliner
I was dubious about this trend at first, but then I tried it this morning and now I love it.
Reverse eyeliner is - you guessed it - the practice of putting the bulk of your eyeliner on your bottom eyelid, rather than the top, as is traditional. Doing this creates an intense effect often reminiscent of a smoky eye, that tends to make the person wearing it look more tired, distant, and aloof - in other words, mysterious.
Unlike the color block trend, this makeup look actually does highlight the eyes and their natural shape - just in a different way than we're used to seeing. Time will tell if this becomes a makeup mainstay, or fades away like other trends - but if it sticks around, it's going to create a world of very different looks than we've had leading up to it - especially because Millennials tended to favor top heavy looks that lightened the shadows under their eyes, rather than darkening them.
