Coachella Fashion Sets Festival Style.

By Laura Medina

http://www.hm.com/us/hm-loves-coachella

H&M for Coachella still promotes the generalize image that most Baby Boomers and non-Californians have of the two weekend music festival, a bunch of teeny-boppers aspiring to their grandparents' Woodstock hippy dreams but....

The sunny reality is this....At $495 for each whole weekend pass, plus the $60 shuttle bus round trip from hotel room to the festival then back or from festival ground to whatever day party and a gourmet, catered dinner/meal plan that starts at $295 just for one night dinner cooked by Los Angeles' top chefs, this is no longer a tweeny-bopper dream but an upscale Woodstock ruled by a Gen-X establishment, ringed by successful Gen-Yers.

The Coachella lifestyle has out-grown it's dirt-cheap camping in tents initial image when it first started a long sixteen years ago.  Basically, the festival grew with it's core fan base then adequately adjusts to their needs.

We're talking about resort hotels and air-conditioned shuttle buses in plush settings.

Since Coachella has gone "Bourgeois Boheminan," (think Abbot Kinney and thank New York Times' David Brooks), this requires easy-going but cool clothes that can deal with the sweat, the dirt, and gourmet dinners while party-ing in the desert.

Old Navy's collaboration with Emily Current + Meritt Elliott, helps you pick the proper items when you go road-tripping to any festival.  The items they selected, no matter how cheap, are smarter clothing investment that travels well through Summer into Fall.

Their March 14th stop at Fig & Olives' inner backyard courtyard was their final stop.  It was a down-home hoe-down in West Hollywood, a sight Los Angelenos rarely seen or experienced.

Yes, you are out in the desert when it's blistering hot during the day but it freezes at night.  Keep cool and keep your cool in a white denim jacket or the unsung hipster classic, the Army Field Jacket.

Your basic outfit to build under those jackets is a black & white striped tee or tank and denim shorts, either white or cut-off denim jeans.  Remember, festival season is all about those "Daisy Dukes."  A Gen-Xer cardio-barre/Legree Pilates devotee can easily pull this off.

If you want more coverage, go with this khaki trench coat or a timeless chambray shirt which is just as stylish as denim but way more light-weight.

Here are more dressier options from Emily Current + Meritt Elliott for Old Navy, where button-shirts are impromptu jackets over tees and tanks.  White denim signals Spring and Summer.  Mini skirts, whether they be A-skirts or circle skirts, are the alternative and checkered crop trousers are the preppy Spring staple that takes you from festival to garden party, as in your $225 catered, fine-dining dinner in Coachella's Rose Garden, so you're fueled for the partying in the concert.

Think of Coachella style growing away from it's cliche initial image of Woodstock hippy re-do to causal, easy-going prep that are wardrobe investment beyond festival season.