Lisa's First Solo Coachella Costumes "Explore the Spectrum" of Her 'Alter Ego' Era
Designer Asher Levine brought the pop star's multifaceted album to life with reptilian scales, twinkling lights, and an onstage quick-change.
The first time Lisa took the stage at Coachella, she performed as one of four members in the K-pop band Blackpink. Her peony, sequin-coated costume coordinated with the rest of her girl group; she had her spotlight moments, but she wasn't the only star.
Two years later, Lisa booked a coveted solo slot on Coachella's 2025 lineup, armed with a smash album Alter Ego and a setlist that showed her stylistic range. One minute, she's all swagger against the thrumming beats of "Rockstar" and "Thunder"; the next, she's sweet and starry-eyed on "Moonlit Floor (Kiss Me)." Bringing that spectrum of music to life required costumes that weren't just complementary to her sounds. They needed to show her range. Enter: designer Asher Levine.
Levine is modern pop royalty's first stop for their most bombastic performances and music videos. Taylor Swift tapped the designer to create her "Bad Blood"-era costumes; Doja Cat, Nicki Minaj, and Lady Gaga are also satisfied clients. He combines familiar onstage silhouettes—like a skintight bodysuit—with "extreme textures." One minute, an Asher Levine A-lister can resemble an alien princess from a far-off planet in a set complete with glowing lights; the next, she can tap her inner superhero in a molded bodysuit with hyperrealistic muscles.
In other words? Levine gets what stars are looking for when they want to break the mold—whether it's the one they've been placed in or one they've made themselves. "I've always been about being different and unique and [exploring] what is other," Levine tells Marie Claire a few hours before Lisa's Coachella set. "I love it when these new pop stars on the block want to be futuristic and they want to show a different side of their badass self. It's so cool that Lisa is living her alter egos in my designs."
Asher Levine designed both of Lisa's Coachella looks, styled by Brett Alan Nelson.
Her first look, a "Reptile Villain" suit, included hyperrealistic scales and fang-like embellishments along the shoulders.
Levine joined forces with Brett Alan Nelson, the stylist and creative director tapped for Lisa's set, only a month before the performance. Landing on her two costumes was a fluid conversation: Lisa's team would bring the references, Levine would filter them through his lens of nature-inspired detailing and careful tailoring, and then the group would refine each look until it was perfect.
To open the set, "I pitched a full reptilian villain texture to Lisa, and she chose that," Levine says. "She wanted scales, and I said, 'Honey, I'll show you scales.'"
The final opening look consisted of a skintight, longsleeve bodysuit resembling the armor of an intergalactic serpent queen. Curving spikes jutted from the structured shoulders and all the way down her arms. Black scales with iridescent shimmer coated the sleeves, bodice, and legs with 3-D texture. (Levine's reptilian references are in part inspired by firsthand experience: Lenore, his rescue iguana, tagged along to rehearsals, to Lisa's delight.) After an initial sketch, Levine consulted Nelson for one additional detail to tie it all together: "a late '90s, Britney-like slouched front belt element."
For added drama, Levine also crafted a floor-sweeping, puffy black coat— designed specifically to be torn off in two pieces after Lisa's opening song.
Lisa opened her Coachella set with "Thunder," arriving onstage in a sweeping coat that would be ripped in two off her body.
Asher Levine describes pieces like the Coachella costumes he created for Lisa as "clean silhouettes with an extreme texture."
Once Lisa was ready for her setlist to take a softer turn, the team swerved in a new aesthetic direction. Out with the hard scales and spikes sharper than venomous fangs; in with fairy lights and curves inspired by the stamen of blooming flowers. The mood board for her second costume even got back to nature, Levine says: "They showed me specific references of bioluminescent insects, bioluminescent mushrooms, bioluminescent veins."
The final result combined shades of turquoise, pink, and opalescent white cast from a glass-like material, with tendrils of glowing lights curving from Lisa's top and hips with the grace of a butterfly. Levine combined UV lights and UV reactive pigments into the "petals" of the shoulder details, a feat of fashion engineering. As she performed, the stage lights landing on her costume would cast an "ethereal glow effect."
Later in the set, Lisa changed into a second look: a bodysuit with shoulders resembling the stamen of a blooming flower, all enhanced by glowing lights.
Levine says his team was working on the light-up elements in Lisa's shoes in the hours leading up to her performance.
The highlight of working on Lisa's Coachella costumes was their combined parts, Levine says. Both looks were futuristic and adventurous, but they harmonized with her music in distinct movements—two pieces of a nuanced, indefinable whole. "It was really cool to explore the spectrum," he adds. "When Lisa's on stage, she's showing all of these different parts of herself: from really soft and ethereal to hard and 'fck up the world.'"
Lisa's second look was inspired by bioluminescent creatures—and involved three separate lighting systems to perfect, Levine says.
Levine says the dichotomy of Lisa's Coachella costumes prove she "can't be put in a box."
An underlying idea of Lisa's performance looks—that she contains multitudes, and they all deserve a moment in the fashion spotlight—plays out way beyond the Coachella. "People want to explore different parts of their identity through how they visually project themselves," Levine says, "and I really see my girl, guy or [anyone] in between wearing a floral dress one day and then wanting to be a little bit darker the next." Trust that the next time Lisa headlines a concert, she'll let another alter ego take center stage.
