Dear Diary,
I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and my cardigan. Made it to the land of fame and sex…am I going to fit in? This was the question troubling me as I waited for my checked bag. The beautiful brunette behind me is eager to network. She asks me what I do, and I say writer, and she says, “Where?” and I say, “i-D magazine” and the light is snuffed out from behind her eyes, and she says, “Oh, I thought you meant a writer writer like a screenwriter.” Not even one hour in LA.
I’ve been to exactly three music festivals in my life, all with disastrous consequence: Once in high school at Gov Ball where I drank a freakshake from a Black Tap burger stall and then puked, once in my college town during when my boyfriend of two years tearfully dumped me during a Mitski set, and once post grad in nowhere Germany where I camped in a tent and developed a simmering dislike of all my friends for no other reason than that I hadn’t had a shower in four days. Coachella has always possessed a sepia toned singularity to me (a New Yorker), with all the remoteness of one of Gulliver’s Travels and all the expense of St. Barths. Somewhere, I’ve heard, there is a desert land where Timothée Chalamet roams (Palm Springs not Arrakis), and even though it’s a billion degrees all the girls wear belts that go nowhere! Tell me more, I ask greedily, you danced with Leonardo DiCaprio? You saw Chappell Roan? You wore a flower crown or an overly assuming hat? You paid how much for a wristband? You stayed at the Guess Jeans compound? What does that mean? Well, I went and let me tell you what it means!
Wednesday: Hollywood Stars Real and Mr. Peanut
I visit the Guess Jeans campus which is festooned with sexy images of Anna Nicole Smith. I wish my apartment was festooned with sexy images of Anna Nicole Smith. A man in distressed jeans and a shark tooth necklace (this inspires a great deal of confidence that my jeans are in the right hands) explains the science behind the new ecofriendly Airwash tech they use.
After a pop into the archive filled with ’80s ringer tees, rib grazing stonewash, and Hawaiian shirts, we visited the Marciano Art Foundation. A former Masonic Lodge, the brutalist building sports a rotation of Paul Marciano’s personal collection, including a small but delightfully sinister Louise Bourgeois, several itsy bitsy ceramic dinosaurs, and a forlorn balloon version of Felix the Cat stuffed into a corner, which reminds me of my current best entrepreneurial idea (which is, is anyone has any startup money to burn, buying my own large inflatable animal à la the NY Union Rat, which I would then bring around, for a sensible sum, to the homes of anyone that wronged you).
Between lunch and dinner, a critical time for introspection and digestion, I visit Mr. Peanut’s Hollywood Star with my friend Jack, which happened to be outside of a nearby cigar lounge. At dinner I sit next to a very handsome Italian influencer, who tells me, when I inquire about what he does for work, “Gym.”
Thursday: Tastes Like An Acai Berry Vape
Onward to Palm Springs. I open my luggage at the hotel. It looks like I packed midair tumbling out a plane headed for Bora Bora: 3 pairs of ballet flats, 1 brown bikini (top and bottom), 1 sparkly bikini (just the top), several identical athletic shorts, 2 belts. There’s a care package for me from Guess which includes a nicotine free Acai berry flavored vape. A marvel. For dinner we are brought to the Guess Jeans Compound. Set against the Palm Springs landscape of cacti and palm trees, the Guess Jeans Compound is reminiscent of a film set, there’s a sense that if you walk too far you might just fall out of the frame. On the grounds there are about 12 free-standing homes, all clean lines and white walkways, 10 of which house influencers and other talent, one is devoted to wellness, and one for parties.
Friday: Nicolai x Nicolaia
I met Nicolai Marciano, current chief business development officer for Guess Inc and son of Guess co-founder Paul Marciano, in his house on the compound. Nicolai, who’s in his late 20s, has a California type of confidence, at ease with the past yet completely forward thinking. He also possesses a well-honed ability to spot new talent—he’s led Guess Inc in collaboration with everyone from A$AP Rocky to the avant garde brand All-In. After getting over the novelty of meeting a fellow Nicolai, we chat about the future of Guess Jeans which he sees as totally tethered to sustainability, putting it succinctly: “Innovation forty years ago was about making denim fashionable, innovation today is about making denim sustainable. We do all this work already, let’s just create this as a baseline. Now more than ever water is important. Solving the water issue for denim is the biggest challenge to the industry.” The UN estimates it takes around 3,781 litres of water to make a single pair of jeans. Soberly he tells me, “For me, sustainability doesn’t matter unless there’s a high impact. To make 100 pieces and be like, this was made out of recycled clothing…it’s a nice gesture but it’s not doing much. If we can affect thousands and millions of units and have a real impact? I have the opportunity to do that with Guess Jeans and that’s what we’re doing.” Out in the desert, the presence—or lack—of water is felt acutely. At Coachella, jorts abound. Imagine if they were all sustainably made? I’d estimate nearly 1 zillions of water would be saved (I studied writing in school, ok.)
At the entrance of the festival an unhappy teen pouts about her fringe vest. Her friend assures, “No, no, it’s whimsical.” A jet flies overhead with advertising banners for vaginal supplements. I use a porta potty and see that someone has already left their leopard print thong in the corner. Once inside, the festival is more massive than imagined, a Mad Maxxian playground, where you can always hear the lure of a musician somewhere and can never reach the end. A.G Cook brings out rapper Danny Brown. The Dare gets mobbed by fangirls. I’m introduced against my will to the unofficial (and disgusting drink) of Coachella: a Redbull Margarita. At the main Coachella stage Lady Gaga delivers a looming reminder that sometimes you have to destroy yourself to start afresh.
Saturday: Mosh for Clairo
My fabulous friend Blu DeTiger is playing, and I end up on stage with my equally fab friend and confidant Jessica Neises shooting water guns at some very thirsty frat boys. I lose my phone, tragic, I find my phone, oh the drama! The girls are wild for 2Hollis, and I am caught in my first moshpit of the weekend. That quickly turns into the second moshpit of the weekend at Charli xcx. Suddenly I hear the dulcet whine of an old man. No, I thought, can that be Bernie introducing Clairo? A hoard of twenty-somethings stampede towards him. A girl berates her friend for voting for Elizabeth Warren, “You didn’t feel the Bern?” A third moshpit (a Clairo moshpit) withers on the vine. Headliner Green Day thrums (“Don’t want to be an American Idiot”) as I leave to go to the intimate Charli xcx after-party hosted at the Guess Jeans compound. I see my friend Nancy Kote, who did the spectacular costuming for Clairo and Marina, and who wore a tiny waisted Gucci shirt herself, that scoundrel. Other attendees: Justin Bieber, Timothee Chalamet, Pink Pantheress and…Leonardo DiCaprio. Charli DJ’d in a dress that read Miss Should Be A Headliner, everyone sipped margaritas (thankfully not Redbull) out of cutie miniature Patron bottles, and celebrities freaked it on the dance floor while Memphy played a set. Outside party-goers lounge on couches, enjoying the weather now that the sun is down. What happens in the Guess Jeans Party House #12 2025 Palm Springs Compound stays in the Guess Jeans Party House #12—or maybe it’s 8, I don’t know—2025 Palm Springs Compound, and what happened was a great party.
Sunday: Dress For The Job You Want aka Boho Cowgirl
I get a blowout by Dreame at the wellness house in the compound which changes my entire personality. Then it’s Megan Thee Stallion! Jennie! Amyl and the Sniffers! Arca, giving goth Rosalía, brings out Addison Rae. Post Malone! I run into my friend Gabby and we discuss the pasta salads at Dimes Market for fifteen minutes because the best views of New York are always from somewhere else. Today is the first day, and the last, that I feel I actually understand how to dress for Coachella. A belt to nowhere has appeared round my waist holding my already perfectly fitting Guess jorts up. I realize I haven’t released the Acai berry-flavored, nicotine-free vape since I got it. A proper Coachella outfit, just like the festival itself, is an alchemical mix of things that shouldn’t work together—like boho chic and athleisure, cowboy boots and a Glorilla snapback, four different colored belts, Redbull and tequila, Post Malone and Gaga—but ultimately create something that’s well, fun? Or if it’s not fun, it’s at least an excuse to act a little like, in the immortal words of Green Day, an American Idiot.
Bye Coachella, you’ve been grand, I have to go now!
