︎︎︎episode 80

Festival Fever: The Good, The Bad and The Fad

1. In 2019 a british group did a survey on brit shopping habits and found found that single-use outfits for music festivals, such as Glastonbury and Coachella, alone, account for approximately $307 million worth of items per year, or about 7.5 million outfits worn only once.
2. In 2022 Thread up did their own research and my mind is blown and a threw up in my mouth a little.

• thredUP’s Festival Fashion survey found that an estimated 1 in 4 people in the U.S. plan to attend a music festival or concert this year.
• Nearly half (42%) of this year’s festival-goers say they plan to buy a new festival outfit. That’s an estimated 26.9M outfits purchased for the return of festival season.
• Nearly 1 in 3 festival shoppers say they buy festival outfits that they'll only wear once.
• 40% of Gen Z say it's unlikely that they will re-wear the outfits purchased for music festivals.
• If every festival shopper thrifted their festival outfit this year instead of buying one new, we would save 940M lbs of CO2E, equivalent to taking 564M cars off the road for a day.***

1. But the merch isn’t just cornered to pre-festival sales and consumption - festivals themselves are turning into shopping centers for their captive audiences as well as platforms for brands to showcase themselves and align with these same influencers.
2. In an article by The Cut, fashion editor Bianca Nieves and was bombarded this year with merchandise at Coachella. Frank Ocean Merchandise, Bad Bunny x Adidas collabs and OF COURSE - Revolve Fests infamous influencer haven.

• Revolve Festival is not affiliated with Coachella but is an adjacent experience.
• It was launched in 2015 and is a very exclusive invitation-only party held the first weekend of Coachella.
• With the popularization of social media through the Aughts and Aughties, Coachella has transited from being all about the music, and more of a place to see and be seen on the internet. Nieves noted that “TikTok commentator Meghan Rienks referred to the festival as an “influencer work trip” in a comment on a post about her past experiences at the festival. “Brands want to be seen so they invite influencers to market them,” she added.
• Revolve Fest evolved out of this mindset shift and is positioned as an influencer haven - with a massive gifting suite and a full space to create content and extoll the virtues of Revolve. Amanda shared this Vice Article that shared some tiktoks from a self described Plus 1. Who did behind the scenes videos of the xperience https://www.vice.com/en/article/jgmz83/coachella-revolve-festival-influencers
• Revolve itself has a very interesting business and marketing model with customer acquisition strategy heavily focused on influencer relations and clout. In 2018 Revolve reported that 70% of their sales came from influencers - yet they have an insanely high return rate. In 2017 they reported $400 million in net sales but also had $385 in returns. So net sales are reported minus the returns that that means that half of everything was returned and that doesn’t even cover the cost of shipping on the company and the environment. It prompted Revolve to reexamine their return policy and takes away the privelege : Their modified policy read “Return restrictions can be placed on accounts that have exceeded our threshold for returns. If you have returned more than $7500 of merchandise in the last 12 months and you have sent back over 80% of the value of your purchases made in the last 12 months, your account will be subject to a modified return policy and not eligible for free returns.” You can still return goods but have to pay for shipping and a 15% restocking fee.
• So I did an Amanda Special and went into a Reddit k-hole about some of the methods and systems that Revolve uses to influence their influencers - the 70% of the sales rae coming through affiliate links that the influencers wield and get bonuses and gifts and even - say a trip to Coachella. They likened it to MLM or pyramid scheme but that really isn’t the correct analogy - but the incentives are more a kin to a little beauty company you may recall.
• “I’m somehow on their influencer list and I get emails for them all the time trying to push sales. Their most recent was that the person with the most sales on any given day gets a free coffee for a year, and the most person with the most sales for those ten days gets a $1000 gift card to revolve. Huge Mary Kay vibes.”
• I can’t remember who’s video I was watching but they said the amount of money they sell from affiliate links depends on how much their credit for shopping on the site is and what trips they go on. They have to earn those trips which gives me big mlm vibes because I see girls begging for sales on fb so they can make their trips.

1. The Native American headdress is easily one of the most adapted, appropriated and beloved problematic accessories within the space of festival fever. Wearing a headdress has endless disrespectful elements and is a vivid display of ignorance that, through many social movements, fashion editorials and music icon endorsements became a big statement piece that took years to be ripped away from the heads & hearts of nonindigenous festival folks.

1. The Guardian came out with an article in 2014 called “Why the Fashion Headdress Must Be Stopped”. “This summer, headdresses, often accessorized with fluoro warpaint, have been ubiquitous at festivals from Coachella to Latitude. Festival culture has always been drawn to the idea of tribes: consider the neo-pagan aesthetic of Burning Man, the early 90s free-party scene and the hardcore hippie enclaves of Glastonbury. Put people in a field for a weekend, sleeping under canvas (and, in some cases, teepees), possibly on drugs, and some are bound to explore fantasies of escaping modern society and embracing their "natural" selves via the otherness of older cultures. Headdresses slot comfortably into the amorphous array of "tribal" knickknacks that have been keeping festival stall-holders in business for years.”

1. Native aesthetics have been a widely popular fashion trend since Woodstock. But the trend of this most recent megawave came from the hipster music and fashion icons in the early aughts. Patients Zero manifested through the influential hispterati who donned headdresses and other tribal symbols as theatrical stage costumes - including Natasha Khan of Bat for Lashes and Juliette Lewis while performing in Juliette and the Licks. They emerged from the depths of the hipster-established beliefs and values around consumer culture leading to the coveting of anything that felt “authentic” or any emblems that represented a counter to the mainstream - obviously with no real comprehension of recognition of the impact they were having, appropriation and the influence that would be left behind.
2. A tidal wave seemed to have transcended through the hipster trend machine with Native American symbols and accessories iterated on left and right and Festivals were one of the most popular places to show off your headdress. Kesha became a consistent figurehead and running joke for journalists during all types of performances for years and was the bane of many activists.
3. Of course, Hipsters pedal in irony and nothing is more ironic than misappropriating elements of sacred indigenous tradition while recontextualizing the pieces to wear for fashion and performative reasons all while disguising the narrative as honoring the culture, But ironically all this essentially mitigates the authenticity that hipsters strived for all the while mocking tradition & culture. Additionally, the irony isn’t lost that most of these festivals where the headdresses were showcased occurred on indigenous land so the appropriation holds even more weight and more of a slight.
4. In the late aughts and early aughties Headresses saw the highest demand on Etsy with shops adding their own handcrafted versions left and right to keep up with the demand. Headresses are not generally available to the public through “authentic” or indigenously crafted channels so crafters and makers jumped on the bandwagon to supply the demand…. Of course, there are pretty strong reasons why headdresses are not available through these authentic channels…..
5. Chelsea Vowel, a contributor to Huffington Post who is a Plains Cree wrote in 2012 about the restriction of such traditional pieces and likens them to other symbolically restricted items that require the person wielding them to have earned them like say a military metal or diplomas. She says: “In particular, the headdress worn by most non-natives imitate those worn by various Plains nations. These headdresses are further restricted within the cultures to men who have done certain things to earn them. It is very rare for women in Plains cultures to wear these headdresses, and their ability to do so is, again, quite restricted.”
6. Thus Etsy turned into essentially a black market of crafters on supplying the increasing demand and creating wholly inauthentic reproductions to fuel the appropriation and trend further.
7. 2010-2011 was really the pinnacle of the trend as retailers started to jump on the bandwagon in full force. Retailers saw the trend and wanted to capitalize on the crush for all things native and indigenous. Capsule collections were released with many of the millennial-leaning retailers and the theme spread far and wide - but this also really marked the beginning of the end.
8. In 2011 (Amanda you likely will remember this) - Urban came out with their Navajo collection which spanned practically all categories and caused serious issues for the retailer. A few products that caught the most ire were a flask and their “Navajo Hipster Panty”Outraged, guest contributor at Racialicious Native American Sasha Houston Brown wrote an open letter to Urban Outfitters:

1. She brought public attention not just to the fact that Urban was capitalizing on china made appropriated crap but also the fact that it was illegal and violated the Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990, which prohibits the "misrepresentation in marketing of Indian arts and crafts products within the United States."
2. The Navajo Nation attorney general took notice and SUED Urban Outfitters in 2012 and they settled in 2016 for an undisclosed sum. The Navajo Nation claims that the retailer has sold more than $500 million worth of Navajo-branded goods using the word “Navajo” a trademarked name as a generic blanket descriptor of anything that is emblematic of native iconography.
3. Hilariously - Forever21 came out with a collection right around the same time also called the Navajo collection and renamed it quickly.
4. DW Diaz's New Urban Infitters Line: Genocide Chic!

1. There is an article that I saw quoted many times in my research from the Native Appropriations website called “But Why Can’t I Wear A Hipster Headdress” which is a forum for discussing representations of Native peoples, including stereotypes, cultural appropriation, news, activism, and more. They eloquently break down the reasons why it is deeply problematic to don headresses or any “tribal trends”:

• Headdresses promote stereotyping of Native cultures.
• The image of a warbonnet and warpaint wearing Indian is one that has been created and perpetuated by Hollywood and only bears minimal resemblance to traditional regalia of Plains tribes. It furthers the stereotype that Native peoples are one monolithic culture, when in fact there are 500+ distinct tribes with their own cultures. It also places Native people in the historic past, as something that cannot exist in modern society. We don’t walk around in ceremonial attire everyday, but we still exist and are still Native.

• Headdresses, feathers, and warbonnets have deep spiritual significance.
• The wearing of feathers and warbonnets in Native communities is not a fashion choice. Eagle feathers are presented as symbols of honor and respect and have to be earned. Some communities give them to children when they become adults through special ceremonies, others present the feathers as a way of commemorating an act or event of deep significance. Warbonnets especially are reserved for respected figures of power. The other issue is that warbonnets are reserved for men in Native communities, and nearly all of these pictures show women sporting the headdresses. I can’t read it as an act of feminism or subverting the patriarchal society, it’s an act of utter disrespect for the origins of the practice. (see my post on sweatlodges for more on the misinterpretation of the role of women). This is just as bad as running around in a pope hat and a bikini, or a Sikh turban cause it’s “cute”. 

• It’s just like wearing blackface.
• “Playing Indian” has a long history in the United States, all the way back to those original tea partiers in Boston, and in no way is it better than minstral shows or dressing up in blackface. You are pretending to be a race that you are not, and are drawing upon stereotypes to do so. Like my first point said, you’re collapsing distinct cultures, and in doing so, you’re asserting your power over them. Which leads me to the next issue.

• There is a history of genocide and colonialism involved that continues today.
• By the sheer fact that you live in the United States you are benefiting from the history of genocide and continued colonialism of Native peoples. That land you’re standing on? Indian land. Taken illegally so your ancestor who came to the US could buy it and live off it, gaining valuable capital (both monetary and cultural) that passed down through the generations to you. Have I benefited as well, given I was raised in a white, suburban community? yes. absolutely. but by dismissing and minimizing the continued subordination and oppression of Natives in the US by donning your headdress, you are contributing to the culture of power that continues the cycle today.

1. By the mid 2010’s and after years of deprogramming and articles from every fashion and lifestyle journalist out there to educate those last few people the trend lost steam. Many festivals started to ban headdresses from the grounds because they were such a problematic festival trend. And really the word spread, friends holding friends accountable and the trend crawled back under the cesspool it crawled out of and hopefully is there to stay.  Recent reports from this year’s Coachella noted that there wasn’t a native american headdress to be found this year.