Coachella 2016: Long live the flower crown and 4 other festival fashion trends

INDIO >> Trying to cross the main thoroughfare separating Coachella’s music tents from the food stations is like a game of real life Frogger, except here it’s cell phone-wielding speed walkers you have to avoid.

I stood in the middle of this human highway for several minutes Friday afteoon, watching the masses speed past in a whir of paisley, neon, mayan pattes and macrame.

• Photos: Top fashion trends seen at Coachella 2016

Aside from typical festival garb, there were five fashions that to me -- an admitted ignoramus of style -- seemed to stick out.

Some of the outfits seemed identical, and with large chain stores like Target advertising festival-themed outfits, there’s a good chance many were.

Leotard and shorts

Ok, so many festival goers opted out of the shorts altogether. At one point, while scribbling away in my notebook, four such women came strolling past me with locked arms, asking one another what they thought that hulking mass of wood and leaves to my right might be. A tree. It was a tree.

Metallic tattoos

Face and body paint pervaded male and female attire on Day 1 of Coachella. Some women have doed gold and silver eyebrow decorations and now look a bit more like Avatar characters. The guys have opted for chest and back decorations such as feathers. Why? I don’t know.

Bare-shouldered smock

This probably isn’t the technical term for it, but far and away the most popular female costume I’ve seen is something akin to a strategically-trimmed poncho that leaves the midriff and shoulders exposed. They can be spotted in a variety of materials, such as macrame, or what looks like an old table cloth. Some are replete with tassles, but all seem like a recipe for fuy tan lines.

Mismatched bros

Red and white pin-striped shorts and an orange and purple paisley button down? Yep. Navy green T-shirt, lime green shorts and a polka dot fay pack? Why not. It seems like outrageous and psychedelic were the two words fluttering around the minds of men as they stood before their closets this moing.

Flower crowns and cowboy boots

The flower crown lives! I’m happy to report this staple of the festival uniform is alive and well. I thought I’d seen the last of high-waisted shorts, cowboy boots and wreath-sized flower crowns when I left college in Florida several years ago. Then after Coachella 2015, I read somewhere that the sorority outfit might be in its death throes. But I’m here to tell you the look has retained a loyal following out here in the desert. Long live the flower crown.

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