(in) Mud

There is no doubt that the summer music festival has seemingly been touched with the ever influential wrath of celebrity, conceiving a new breed of festival goer. This entwinement of high fashion and festival is a rather modern phenomenon and if it had a catchphrase I’d like to suggest that it would probably be something along the lines of- ‘a little less mud bath a little more catwalk’. If you do let mud enter into the equation, then let it be splattered up your toned, sun kissed thigh in a way that hints at Kate and Pete circa 2005.


Doherty and Moss 2005. The summer of too many Trilby hats and too many boney adolescent knees protruding under skinny jeans. The media highlight for the couple? Glastonbury festival of course.

You’d be lying if you said after seeing Kate in that gold mini dress, those shiny black pvc trousers, carrying the 'it bag-du-jour', that ‘i want to be her!’ flashed through your mind at an unpleasantly and downright unhealthy fast pace. Note, this was where the festival began its metamorphosis into catwalk. And so the celebrity gates were gapingly wide open- Daisy Lowe, Alexa Chung, and more Geldof sisters than you can shake a stick at. It really all boils down to the question; If you can get Jimmy Choo Hunter wellies, why wouldn’t you?


2009 Pixie Geldof and Jo Wiley sport Jimmy Choo Hunters, 40 years later and a slight deterrent from Life magazines coverage of Woodstock 1969.

Once again, perhaps poor Kate isn’t so much the brain, but merely the poster girl of ‘fashionable festival’. Lucky us, because we have been catered for. Trundle into town and we are spoilt for choice, because come May, the shelves of the British high street are stocked choc a bloc for the ‘festival season’. The festival season has become as much a part of the fashion calender as party wear, or holiday attire. Case in point, this Spring/ Summer, Topshop state they have pushed the ‘go global trend’. Designed for the ‘eclectic techno traveller’, the brand go on to state they ‘can’t wait for the festival season to bust out our crazy knits, combats and keffiyeh scarf’. All making an appearance at a store near you, at your local festival, on the girl sleeping in the ‘too cute its kitsch and kitsch is cool so that’s ok’ Cath Kidson tent next to yours. Festival is an excuse to consume, an excuse for new outfits and as much as a headache to decide what to wear for as a wedding.

It’s official and has been for a while, camping is damn chic, festivals are the place to be seen. The fashion industry has fed, contributed to, or even invented this appetite for glamour within the modern day music festival. Vogue aka the fashion bible, issues a ‘best dressed at Glastonbury’ list every August, with the predictable concoction of London socialites you may/ may not have heard of, chirpy fresh faced models and the coolest kids from the most popular art school band of the moment.
All easily achieving what most can't - that achingly sexy ‘i’ve just rolled out of bed/tent’ hair whilst living in an actual field.


Corrine Day's story for Vogue. Preened festival chic.

No grass stains, no spilt cider, no mud.
(no fun)

So with all that in mind, here's some of the highlights from the 'best dressed' lists of Coachella 2010...........