Coachella week: Fashion

I had one of my fashion forward friends visit last weekend and we went to lunch with a girl I used to date.

"How are you guys friends? He walks around in shorts and sandals and calls everyone brah?"

"Ya, that's most of my friends, I'm just the only one that cares about how they dress."

So there is some anecdotal evidence that I do not know how to dress myself. My wardrobe consists entirely of care packages and Christmas presents from my mom, mashed up with free t shirts remaining from college.

It's likely why I am wearing a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles shirt right now. LOL I have an interview today.

But that's in the real world. Festival fashion is a totally different beast. Festival fashion is like taking a frat closet and dousing it in LSD. Last year I famously did a Coachella pink out. I wore a Troop 444 boy scout uniform to Lollapalooza 2011. This past Snowglobe I acquired a blue leisure suit and my crown jewel, a Pikachu onesie.

Festival fashion is an advanced form of peacocking. You want to look cool, fun and approachable, but never too self serious. It's like a real life Bumble profile. You want to make it so women approach you and start the conversation (because obviously talking to chicks is really hard and scary.)

This guide will be a masterclass in what to wear to Coachella in both a practical manner and a way to maximize your experience. I have tried some of these and others I have just cooked up after eating too many edibles, proceed with caution and remember to always go big.

FRIDAY
I am going to write this from the point of view of a camper because if you rented a sick house in Palm Desert, chances are you've already got a group of 14, hopefully even numbers and you're probably just going to hook up with one of your housemates. But if you roll up to the campground early Thursday evening, the possibilities are endless.

Camping at Coachella is a bit like getting a random roommate in college. And while my roommate and I never talked to each other and he covered our apartment with posters of himself; I've never had bad neighbors at Coachella. In fact both years I had cute girls that actively wanted to fornicate with me, it's great.

What is important Thursday night/Friday morning is laying seeds. You want to go BIG, you want to be MEMORABLE. A Hawaiian shirt with a bucket hat isn't quite going to cut it. This is like working at Chachkies and you need at least 37 pieces of flash tat.

The group costume:
A classic standby of Halloween and Bachelor parties alike, the group costume is great for a multitude of reasons. It's easy for people to tell you have friends and it's harder to get lost. As I covered earlier, I obviously am going to lose my phone. But imagine rolling up to Major Lazer and asking a random group of chicks, 'Hey have you seen 5 other Hulk Hogans?' Ya sure, they are right over there rolling their faces off.

Of course there are a few different ways to pull this off. Like the aforementioned example and my Dublin bar crawl you could all dress like Hulk Hogan. Conversely, you could dress like the NWO or the Wolfpack. I tend to pick things from the 90's that I secretly liked but what embarrassed to enjoy.
Examples: boy bands, power rangers, pokemon, wrestling. I promise you if you dress like the blue ranger on Friday, you will get your dick sucked, there is just no way around it.

On the other hand, I am nervous about rattling off three pokemon onesies because the desert is hot as fuck and the only thing girls find more repellant than a boring outfit is sweat.

These are the risks you run when dressing like an asshole.

Anyway start strong Friday, cover every conceivable inch of your body with flash tats, if a girl wants to draw body paint on you, say yes. If you have body hair, shave it.

SATURDAY
Day 2 is a day to improve and expand on your conquests the day before. You will wake up already drunk at 6am and hopefully you will now be fast friends with your entire campsite. It is not uncommon to have a 48 person flip cup game going by 8am.
But how do you make sure all the fly bitches inside remember you? Obviously they had fun taking pictures with you in your Charmander one piece yesterday, but if you don't keep that momentum going, it was all for not.

In improv there is a rule that once you establish a game, you roll with it the whole time. So if you decide that on Friday you guys are rolling with a group costume, you group costume every day.

OR…you rock a theme.

Theme party:
Let's say you're rolling with 10 people. Obviously there were not 10 original power rangers. I'm sure there is like a Silver Ranger is the 7th Japanese manga spin off, but being the silver ranger would be like painting your chest with the second exclamation point in GO TEAM!!! Everyone knows the second exclamation point was a bitch.

So you roll with something much more open and inclusive…the theme.

Something like PARTY VAMPIRES. Raved out to the max but also with fake teeth and copious amounts of fake blood. The type of Hello Kitty, cosplaying nerd chick you would attract with this theme would make a 13 year old version of you premature in your pants. But group costumes like this also allow you to get into character. Who doesn't want to strut around the polo grounds behaving exactly like Kiefer Sutherland in Lost Boys.

Obviously you don't have to go THAT far, but something other than 90's would be appreciated. Give a little effort for God's sake. My group is kicking around a weirdly specific theme for one day called 'dad casual' in which we wear open hawaiian shirts, cargo shorts, flip flops and calf high socks. (I don't know about this outfit, it seems that it would only attract girls with daddy issues, plus I'm about 8 pounds overweight at the moment)

But that's the right train of thought. Again, you want your group to be instantly recognizable. You want girls to be thinking at their pre game, I wonder what the Homestar Runner guys will be dressed up as today.

If those girls meet up with you and then they see you and say "oh what's your theme today?"

And you come up with something lame like "uh, we're all wearing black because we are all going to black out…"

Be advised: No dry hand jobs for you.

SUNDAY
It's the last day, it's time to pull out all stops. If you don't close today you're gonna have to make some shit up like the girl you finger banged in the hot tub on spring break.
(If every middle school story is to be believed there are SO many chicks that got anonymously fingered in hot tubs in between 1999-2002)

But have no fear, you saved the best for last. You have your secret weapon you have…THE SUNDAY OUTFIT.

The Sunday outfit is the thing that will break necks. It will net you 100+ IG likes, it will be your new Facebook profile pic for the next 6 months. It is the picture that will have girls swiping right.

My friend Nick wears a black shirt every Sunday with the face of 57 year old British Soul singer Sade. He calls is Sade Sundays. Sade Sundays have been stalking Coachella for 5 years now, it's nearly an institution at this point.

Some people will run out of clothes by Sunday and wear next to nothing. Some people will just walk into the festival grounds in a swimsuit and pass out under some shade.

NOT YOU. You are prepared. You have…

The secret weapon:
Here's the thing, if you killed on Friday AND on Saturday, all 200,000 people at the festival will be wondering what you have up your sleeve. One final trick, like a band coming out for their encore to bring the house down. You will be tasked with the near impossible act of raising the bar on yourself, again.

Imagine if you dressed as a Charmander Friday, Charmaleon on Saturday and then as a GOD DAMN CHARIZARD on Sunday. My God there would be Buzzfeed articles about you. You might get a picture with Taylor Swift. 'T Swift lets her inner nerd girl show w pokemon selfie!'

Just remember, Sunday is where you cement your legacy. The Warriors can go 73-9 but if they lose to the Spurs, they won't be shit. You certainly don't want to be Jordan Speith choking on the 13th. The Coachella equivalent would probably be something like passing out at the Sahara tent.

I cannot tell you what to wear Sunday, it has to come from within. It's like the end of Angels in the Outfield, I CANNOT WIN THIS ONE FOR YOU. Come Monday morning you will inevitably feel sad because of all of the substances leaving your body but you do not want to double down on that by feeling you didn't leave it all out their on the court.

When you are scrubbing 3 days of dirt, sweat, blood, tattoos and paint off of your body Monday during your 78 minute shower I want you to know that you gave it all. Remember heroes last forever…but legends never die.

Have fun out there everyone.