Banks Won Coachella This Weekend With an Extremely Un-Coachella Look
The musician Banks wore head-to-toe Alexander McQueen, a decidedly dark contrast with the quotidian festival look.
On the surface, Coachella’s second weekend looks a lot like the first — same lineup, same heavily branded sponsor tents and events, same blistering heat. But the second weekend, which was added in 2012 when a single weekend could no longer support the demand for such a massive festival, has its own personality; in a recent story, WWD described it as “when artists hit their stride.” This separate personality was nowhere more evident than during Banks’s Friday evening set, a marked departure from the first weekend’s show. Banks—née Jillian Banks, but recording and performing under her last name—works with celebrity stylist Christian Classen, who also works with the likes of Selena Gomez on stage, to cultivate two distinct stage auras for the two separate weekends. And on weekend two, she came into her own as a goth empress.
To recap: For the first weekend, Banks wore a head-to-toe Givenchy look, entirely in red—a sequined, pleated skirt that closed the lookbook for the Fall 2017 collection paired with a bustier top. Then, for the second weekend, she wore entirely Alexander McQueen—a goth-inflected all-black look she wore both wandering around the festival and then on stage, where she paired it with elaborate body makeup courtesy of makeup artist Rachel Goodwin.
Banks in Alexander McQueen at the Coachella festival, April 2017.
Who: Banks.
When: Friday, April 21.
Where: The Coachella music festival’s second weekend in Indio, California.
What: Lace-paneled trousers, a lace bustier, combat boots, and a military jacket from the Alexander McQueen Spring 2017 collection paired with one of the label’s new box bags.
Why: “Thank you @alexandermcqueen for making me feel like the most powerful queen today,” Banks wrote on her Instagram. We’re not disagreeing—she looks the part of goth queen, too. It’s a definite right-turn from the usual festival look of crop tops, fringe, and distressed denim, and it’s even bolder for that fact. The musician’s 2016 sophomore record was called The Altar, and the music has a decidedly supernatural cast—which makes her occult McQueen look all the more appropriate for the occasion.
Banks prepares for the Guggenheim gala with Dior’s Maria Grazia Chiuri as her fairy godmother:
