For Her First-Ever Coachella Performance, Ethel Cain Went Full Cheerleader in Givenchy

Ethel Cain is, self-admittedly, not exactly a festival person. “I have to work myself up to even go to concerts at small venues,” the 25-year-old singer-songwriter jokes. In fact, her first time attending a festival (Pitchfork) was also her first time performing at one. 

Nonetheless, Cain, who began self-releasing music in 2017 from Florida, has proven to be a quick study. When performing at festival crowds, Cain points out, some of the audience might be unfamiliar with your work. (Although, given the breakout success of her 2022 concept album, Preacher’s Daughter, Cain has racked up plenty of fans as of late.) For her debut Coachella performance, Cain treated the career milestone as “just having some fun in the desert with my friends,” she shared with Vogue, shortly before embarking from Los Angeles to the desert in a “clown car full of our gear and stuff.” Among the baggage was her Weekend 1 performance look, designed by Matthew M. Williams, creative director at Givenchy. “I love how clean and simple his designs are,” Cain shares of the designer, who frequently upheld modern design principles during his tenure at the French house. “It always goes back to the lines for me. Very clean lines.” 

When Williams sent over potential designs to Cain, the performer found herself immediately drawn to the designer’s slightly more rough-and-tumble spin on the classic cheerleading uniform. “It’s very Americana, which is something that Matthew and I are both interested in,” Cain said. The varsity-red centric look included a pleated miniskirt, a letterman jacket that featured Cain’s name in stitching and patches that say “G” and “52” (the year Givenchy was founded). 

“I’ve been a fan of Ethel’s music for a long time, and that is how we became friends,” Givenchy creative director Matthew M. Williams told Vogue over email. “We both love Americana, so for Coachella I wanted to design a quintessential look just for her.

In many ways, the look is a sophisticated continuation and elevation of the cheerleading uniform Cain wore in the suburbia-centric lo-fi visual for “American Teenager.” That look was deeply personal. Cain wore her mother’s old cheerleading uniform, which, the artist says, she unexpectedly discovered one day “while shuffling around through a closet.”