When Ethel Cain took the stage at Coachella Weekend 1 in a pair of distressed beaded pinstriped overalls, it took eagle-eyed fans almost no time to ID them. “Am I going crazy or is Ethel Cain wearing custom Dior for her Coachella set?” a fan wrote on X.
Indeed, Hayden Anhedönia—the singer behind the Ethel Cain persona—tapped her friend Jonathan Anderson to create a pair of bespoke overalls for her Weekend 1 performance. While a far cry from the Edwardian silhouettes that Anhedönia favors as Ethel Cain, the more rugged look nods to her latest album, Willoughby Tucker, I Will Always Love You. “The overalls are simply Ethel and Willoughby, no extra bells and whistles, save the lovely beaded pin-striping,” Anhedönia tells Vogue.
But for Weekend 2, Anhedönia wanted to embrace the other side of Ethel Cain. “I’ve always tried to inhabit two characters on stage and in life, at least for this particular chapter: One is the haunted woman in the house on the hill, skulking around in her drapes, scaring the local children. One is the tomboy who runs with the boys and is hard-pressed to keep her shoes on,” she explains. “Marrying that vision to a house like Dior is how you get couture overalls.”
Anderson, for his part, adds: “For Coachella, we approached it as an exchange: a dialogue between her codes, her narrative, and those of the house, creating something slightly rawer—almost a Dior take on grunge—in harmony with the music while allowing her voice to take center stage.”
The second weekend’s look, however, is a far cry from the couture overalls. Dior fashioned Anhedönia a black mock-neck gown with a gathered waist and flowing sleeves affixed with organza petals. “The dress feels like it fits right into the original quintessential Ethel Cain funereal garb, less narrative and more abject conceptual,” she says. Anhedönia added a black cyclamen headpiece, her version of the colorful posies that dotted Anderson’s debut couture collectsion.
“I will say, my favorite detail is the black silk cyclamen blossoms on the headpiece,” she says. “I was so tickled at seeing a black version made especially to go with my dress. I already loved the dress from the sketch alone, but the blossoms were what truly sealed the deal for me.”
While Anhedönia admits, “I don’t venture into the fashion world too terribly often,” she found a particular kinship with Anderson, whose couture show she attended back in January. “Jonathan and I met the way I meet all my favorite people, which is simply through the love of our crafts,” she says. “I told him my usual spiel about the two sides of the Ethel Cain coin, and he understood immediately. He’s one of the sweetest people I’ve ever met, and I’m glad I’ll always have this collaboration to look back on.”
