Festival Fashion and the 5th Season

It is impossible to discuss festivals without discussingfashion, and to some extent, beauty. Fashion and beauty have become synonymouswith festivals, creating a whole new category of fashion, or a 5th fashionseason as Vogue Australia proclaimed in 2018. This new fashion season is nestled between spring and fallcollections. Rebecca Minkoff, who began doing festival collections afterattending a festival and seeing thousands of her designs on attendees, likenedthe festival season to the Super Bowl for fashion (Holmes 2018). Brands withaesthetics that easily transitioned to fill the growing market have describedthe phenomena as being like the holiday season for other retailers (Holmes).Unfortunately, as this is a recent trend, the overall market impact has yet tobe captured, but retailers who cater to these consumers say that the market islarge and is continuing to grow (Holmes). Presently, festival fashion staples include bohemian crop tops, cut-off jean shorts, t-shirts,fringe, crossbody bags, Wellington boots, and maybe some glitter for goodmeasure. In many ways, the staples of festival fashion have become formulaic,creating a “festival uniform” that many in fashion agree needs to go. The “uniform”harkens back to 2004 when model Kate Moss (who is largely considered thearchitect of the modern festival uniform) wore several variations of thepreviously stated staples as well as a black sundress with a studded belt, Uggs,and neon aviators to Glastonbury (Tashjian). As Rachel Tashjian describes, “[i]twas a combination of sloppy garments and accessories that looked somehowpristinely pulled together—and thus became the ethos of what we consider“festival dressing.”