What's fresh in festival beauty?

We spoke to Nylon about festival beauty and trends over the years at iconic events such as Coachella and Glastonbury. Will the 2010s festival trends comeback or are they permanently outdated? Read more to find out!

Nylon: We saw a number of more understated looks go viral for Coachella last year (thinking Hailey Bieber's specifically). Is festival beauty getting more reserved/similar to party beauty? And why?

Digi: I think festival beauty is definitely becoming less tethered to the look that defined it in the 2010s (when festival culture peaked). That era was quite maximalist — think face gems and metallic tattoos, glitter and bold liners. It was kind of the boho equivalent of birthday makeup, to reference your article. I think people are more interested in festival-functional makeup now — think the fairly bare faces of Kate Moss and Alexa Chung at Glastonbury in the 2000s, which has become relevant outside of beauty and festival culture as culture swings towards indie sleaze.

Nylon: Do festival beauty trends at events like Coachella have a major impact on beauty trends for the rest of the year? If so, how? Thinking of viral examples/replica makeup videos!

Digi: Festival beauty trends have actually always been quite siloed as a playground for beauty looks – for the most part dating back the past few years, festival beauty trends have stayed within the same tropes of glitter, face jewels, bohemian references, psychedelic color palettes, and so on. There hasn’t been much drastic outstanding trends that stray away from these tropes, let alone viral beauty looks that audiences have been eager to recreate. This is in part due to the nature of music festival culture and history – the festival itself is such a standalone spectacle of an event that people see it as a special occasion to dress according to classic festival beauty looks, rather than an opportunity to experiment. Nonetheless, that reason makes it all the more exciting for festival-goers to revisit the playfulness of festival beauty every year! 

Nylon: Where do you think festival beauty trends are headed? What's in the future for festival beauty?

Digi: While we haven’t seen particularly out-there or unconventional festival beauty looks in the past few years, I do see the potential of festival beauty being slightly shaken up going forward. In particular, I think the past year’s explosion of trend “cores” (e.g., barbiecore) and other nostalgic aesthetics that have prevailed, such as y2k and now indie sleaze, will impact the stylistic inspirations of festival-goers this year. Maybe we’ll see an all pink makeup look in homage to barbiecore, or messy hair reminiscent of an American Apparel ad. Or rather, it is somewhat of a chicken-or-egg situation – maybe it will be easier (and more fun) for us to identify festival beauty trends thanks to our wealth of aesthetic knowledge we’ve now accumulated! 

I can also see people doing 2010s festival beauty semi-ironically — emulating the festival looks, now considered a bit basic or outdated like face gems and metallic face tattoos, worn by celebrities like Vanessa Hudgens.

Read full article by Laura Pitcher here

✨ Contributing Fairies

• Rachel Lee, Insights & Cultural Analyst
• Biz Sherbert, Culture Editor

✨ Digi Reading Recs

A History of Vanessa Hudgens’ Coachella Looks (Marie Claire, 2021)

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