Bestival Dress Down

posted: 24 September 2007 Anna Chapman

Back in 1969, packing for Woodstock was easy. You dug out your hippie threads, safe in the knowledge that your neighbours were twitching their curtains and tutting at your choice of outfit.

Once there, you felt a warm oneness as you brushed loons with fellow festival-goers in the sunshine.

Fast forward to 2007 and despite torrential rain, this summer the UK has hosted more festivals than sit-down Sunday lunches with the family. A simple poll on the streets reveals that most citizens of our fine nation have sipped at least one warm beer while being entertained on grassland, even if it was in front of Sam and Ed's Boozy Blues Experience in their local park. Festival-going has become resolutely mainstream.

The downside is that festival wear has become a summer uniform - Kate Moss wannabe shorts for the ladies, a splash of army gear, the ubiquitous vintage T-shirt and size 0 sunglasses. Done! So rather than being the vision of a hip outsider united with her like-minded brethren in a muddy field, the festival goer is High Street Bird, or Bloke if you must.

Which is why the fancy dress theme at Bestival has been adopted so ferociously. Dress as a pirate and you'll only look like a twat on the way there. Once inside the Isle of Wight's Robin Hill Country Park, everyone will be stroking your parrot and complimenting your eye-patch. This year most people spent much of the weekend enjoying the liberation of being dressed as someone else. The tight-suited Beastie Boys were stunned into a self-indulgent rampage when the played to a pack of Smurfs, pear cider-fuelled wenches and Scooby Doo x 3. Beth Ditto joined in by losing her dress.

As the dressing up disease spreads to other events, it seems the only way to recapture the original festival vibe is to wear a stupid costume. After all everyone else will be.

Anna Chapman - Anna Chapman blagged her way into a job at The Face 12 years ago so she could get free CDs. Next she spent two summers on the Space terrace editing worldpop's Ibiza website. Staff jobs at Sky and Sleazenation and freelance ramblings for weighty titles like The Guardian, Vogue and Time Out kept her in beer money before Que Pasa snapped her up to launch Virgin Mobile BITES in 2004. Thanks to her one-year-old daughter and a move to Channel 4's WAP site, she spends more time clearing up than talking rubbish.