Coachella: it’s happened. It filled your Instagram feed with beautiful, tanned people over the weekend. Over the coming weeks fashion magazines and websites will dissect its street style and ask hard-hitting questions like 'what’s the new flower garland?' and 'what does it all mean for your festival fashion wardrobe this year?'

The thing is, most of the people answering these questions weren’t actually at the festival. They sat at a computer screen thousands of miles away from the action. They’re speculating based on a small bunch of photographs taken by someone they commissioned or perhaps even an agency.

Now, we don’t like to brag, but thanks to Mercedes Benz we were at the festival and so we do have first hand knowledge of the Coachella style scene. We spent hours people-watching, stalking the stylish and dissecting those little easy-to-miss details to give you the inside track. We cut through all that fringe, crochet and acid wash just to pinpoint the new things that are happening at the 'world's coolest festival'. Here are 11 things about the fashion at this year’s Coachella that you’d only know if you were there.

1. A $5 bandana was the must-have accessory

Granted, this was mainly because of the sandstorms - there’s a limit to how long you can ingest sand with good humour. But so in-demand were these bandanas that the price doubled to $10 half way through the Saturday. The noteworthy thing here, though, is that even when the difficult weather subsided, the hordes still seemed wedded to wearing their new bandanas anyway, just as a scarf. The bond had been formed.

3. Denim cut-offs have a serious competitor

The street style pictures may show almost everyone wearing denim shorts, but let the record reflect that at Coachella 2014 there was another contender in the running for the title of Festival Fashion Essential: printed shorts. These (especially in florals) were just as popular as cut-offs, if not slightly more so. The tide has turned, people.

2. Bras have been given actual clothing status

Pffft, bikini top we see you and raise you a bra this year. We’re not talking about bralets (though there were plenty of those spotted too). We’re talking about proper undergarments, predominantly of the lacey variety, worn as tops, often without any form of cover-up. The more conservative interpretation of this trend was a flash of bra-clad side-boob from a loose vest.

4. Glitter tattoos are the new neon body paint

Sure, some people are still intent on doodling all down their arms with neon body paint, but judging by the dwindling numbers doing so at the Yuma stage, it’s definitely lost some appeal. What did gain momentum as the weekend progressed were the silver and gold glitter flash tattoos, which looked seriously brilliant on bronzed, glistening skin under the full glare of the sun.

5. The men of New York really enjoy a printed sock, even in the desert

They wear them pulled up to the calf. Sounds dodgy and a little warm for desert climes, but actually it looked pretty good. BTW, it wasn’t just the male residents of NYC buying into this trend, but 82% of all men polled did indeed hail from the Big Apple so we’re laying this with them.

6. A lot of girls went for tricky footwear, because, well, it is Coachella!

We mean tricky in a couple of ways: they were either heavy, military like boots that were a bit hot looking for stomping through desert sand. Or they were knee-high gladiators that opened up a whole new world of weird tan lines. We’re paraphrasing here, but the general reasoning was 'they’re just cool.'

7. There’s a new crop top shape in town

Crop tops now come with added flounce at the hem. Weirdly none of the street style pictures we’ve seen have reflected this trend, but honestly 97.34%* of all crop tops worn at Coachella this year had a ruffle!

*Statistic made up

8. Garlands are on their way out

Most girls were just doing messy hair, but we saw lots of  great fedoras too (though not of the straw variety as you might expect, they were almost exclusively all fabric). Of course there were still bunches of girls remaining loyal to the flowers in their hair thing (including Poppy Delevingne), but they did have the courtesy to move the trend along a smidge at least. It's back to wearing them like a halo (as opposed to hairband style) and daisies and gerberas were the bloom of choice for most.

9. It’s been a while but aviators are definitely back

There’s still a hardcore contingent of people doing the neon sunnies thing, but a visual referendum confirmed that more than half attendees were back in aviators.

10. The designer bag to carry was Chanel

Most of the biggest and best designer houses were slung over someone’s shoulder in one form or another, but the luxury brand we saw over and over again was Chanel. There was a smattering of the key spring / summer styles, like the graffiti backpack and the minaudiere, but mainly it was classics like the 2.55, in beautiful, unexpected colours such as sky blue.

11. Flares are on the up again

You might assume from the photos that there was just one or two renegade women doing their bit for the rights of flares. Well you’d be wrong, because actually they were quite a popular look. We’re not talking denim short numbers here - so it’s still a micro trend - but they sauntered past us with enough frequency for us to sit up, take note and worry about how these girls cope with trailing hems in portaloos.

A special thank you to Mercedes Benz for talking the team to Coachella 2014 in the new Mercedes GLA class.