With the benefit of hindsight, what was the fashion story of Glastonbury 2015?
Name withheld, by email
Truly, at least a week is what is necessary in order to cogitate, consider and, indeed, collect one’s thoughts on this momentous matter. Are floral headpieces over? (Yes.) Is tie dye too Camden Market? (Yes.) (Incidentally, “too Camden Market” was one of the ultimate disses at my school back in the 1990s and one I have found to be surprisingly useful and enduring.) Are hotpants ever a good idea in a field? (No.) But these are all general rules that can, really, be applied to any Glastonbury. Our business here today is whether there were any fashion trends at the festival that can be tied specifically to 2015 in the manner of the historic – nay, seminal – time in 2004 when Sienna Miller wore a low-slung belt, or when Kate Moss wore wellingtons and a long jumper in 2005. Oh, blessed are we who lived through such epoch shaping times!
Well, I am happy to say that the answer is yes, there was such a fashion statement at this summer’s festival and, for once, it had nothing to do with looking thin, nor was it dependent on being so. Boho is still a massive no-no but, proving that K-Mo, as no one has ever called her, is always ahead of everyone in fashion trends (and possibly EasyJet queues), it does have to do with wellingtons. This year, was all about the monogrammed wellington.
Now, I say “all about the monogrammed wellington”, but what makes it a fashion trend was its elitist nature. That is how fashion trends work, you see. When fashion writers deem something is a trend, they mean that three over-photographed women have worn it (fashion writer rule: two’s a coincidence, three’s a trend). Then when the public obey this edict and wear it for themselves, the trend is immediately damned as “overexposed” and the whole process starts again. Hey! No one ever said fashion was easy, people.
This summer, a well-known wellington company, which I won’t name (but they are welcome to buy advertising if they want publicity in this paper) gave wellingtons to certain celebrities monogrammed with their names on them in place of the company’s logo. Now, this being a music festival fashion trend, obviously only geniuses were included in this gifting: Noam Chomsky, Peter Higgs, Alice Munro … Wait, sorry, apparently I’m reading off the wrong list here. Actually, it was Poppy Delevingne, Suki Waterhouse and Daisy Lowe. Well, I was close there, but I maintain that dear Noam would look MARVELLOUS in a pair of a monogrammed wellingtons. Rumours reach me that Kim Kardashian also had a pair of monogrammed wellingtons but these are impossible to confirm because Kardashian was careful to be photographed only wearing her stilettos on the muddy Somerset fields.
Taking a small detour for a moment, can we all just stand up and applaud dear Kim for remaining so utterly true to herself – her inner Kardashian-ness – that she refused to alter her style a jot for Glastonbury? If you have never been to a fashion festival, especially one as over-scrutinised as Glastonbury, you have no idea how hard it is to resist the suction pull of festival fever. You arrive on the Friday in your normal clothes, utterly determined not to be a festival cliche and sneering at those who are. By Sunday, you’re rolling around in a field in denim hotpants, a faux vintage band T-shirt and a fringed poncho, talking to someone called “Bristol Jack” about how we’re all totally connected, man. Gwyneth Paltrow, Mick Jagger, even Lionel Richie – not people one can accuse of being low-maintenance, and yet all of them have bent their usual personal style to accommodate the whims of Glastonbury’s surprisingly persuasive fashion rules. But not our Kim. Even at four months pregnant, she insisted on sporting her now signature awkward-length lycra dress and strappy sandals while trudging through Somerset. Kardashian did confess on Twitter that she had sported wellingtons at some point in the day, but clearly this was such a painful event for her that she managed to – gasp! – stop taking selfies for the period of time in which she wore them so as to ensure absolutely no photographic evidence of this moment of shoe-style slumming. Say what you like about the Kardashians, but you gotta give them this: they are never off-brand.
Anyway, back to the monogrammed wellingtons. Monogramming has become quite a thing in fashion and, on the whole, I endorse it. Seeing as so much emphasis in fashion is placed on, strangely, looking the same as everyone else, there is something quite satisfying about individualising that handbag, or whatever, you spent a week’s wages on.
But these monogrammed wellingtons – oof. For a start, in the world of monogramming, there is a distinct difference between putting your initials (classy, subtle) on something and putting your name on it (a bit cutesy-wootsy, childish). But the real point here is that these boots were only available to celebrities, ie people whose names are perfectly well-known already and do not need their boots to introduce them. Unless, perhaps, the boot company was making an ironic comment that the term celebrity is now so debased that the public needs help ascertaining their actual names. I mean, could you identify Poppy Delevingne in a crowd if your life depended on it? I rest my case. If that was the modus operandi, well played, boot company. If, on the other hand, it was yet another way to celebrate celebrity narcissism, get in the sea, boot company.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com
