Fashionable festivals the new catwalk

United Kingdom | by Ross Purdie | 12 October 2004

With the likes of Lost Vagueness, designer wellies, Kate Moss, and the Scissor Sisters all injecting some glam into today's festival experience, the notion of intimate field happenings fueling fashion's bizarre twists and turns is nothing new.

But this week, two of the biggest icons of that farwaway gliteratti world, entirely forgetten about after three days of no washing and eating mud, have aligned themselves with the unlikely pairing of Glastonbury and Guilfest.

While John Galliano has based his latest collection on "what young women look like after a few days at the Glastonbury Festival", Christian Dior has unveiled its latest 'face', Johnny Hood, a young festival reveller who was picked out of the crowds at Guilfest earlier this year.

A spokesman for Oxygen Model Management, who discovered the boy from Aberdeenshire at the Guildford event, said: "We send our modelling scouts out to all the major festivals now. It's a great place to see people for who they really are. We're very excited about Johnny."   

Galliano seemed just as excited about the 'special look' of festival goers when he unveiled his spring/summer 2005 ready-to-wear show on Saturday in Paris, building his entire collection around hippy pschedelia and flower power. 
 
Describing how the marijuana-leaf designs and lava lamp-like shapes were inspired by a weekend spent at the world's most famous festival, the controversial designer said: "It's the idea of flowers growing out of everywhere, whether it's denim or tweed, and very Glastonbury."

A poster promoting the show backstage at the Empire Theatre, where the show was held, read: "$60 billion heiresses take Glastonbury by storm - too rich to walk. 

So whether strutting and sipping champagne backstage, or struggling through the mud dribbling a look of death, remember - someone could be eyeing you up to become the next big thing! 

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