Zoo8 Festival Fashion Report

The Hives = awesome. My photographic skills = crap

Last weekend I went to the Zoo Thousand festival (Zoo8) which was as much of a mess as has been reported, I am afraid to say, I do feel like my money was somewhat wasted but I still had a good time. When I wasn't watching and listening to the few artists that actually turned up (ha! okay, most of them did turn up, but yeah...), I ate some food - smoothies and haloumi sandwiches being the highlights - and, naturally, checked out what people were wearing.

The Good:

There were lots of people with really fabulous wellies. I was jealous because although mine are from Juju (I was so excited to have wellies called "Juju", that being one of my many nicknames) and have this really cool orange and purple stripe lining, and they came in a matching box, and are very comfortable and fit well, being size 9s they are from the mens' range and because men are apparently supposed to have boring feet, they are plain black on the outside. Check 'em out. I remember just a few years back wellies only seemed to come in black or green, now you can even buy them in blue and red from the garden centre of all places! I checked the garden centre as part of my Mad Welly Hunt during the week before the festival and nearly got a navy blue pair but I wanted black to go with my planned outfits.

A selection of wonderful wellies:


I also noticed masses of stripy knee-high socks being worn, but unfortunately I don't think this is the beginnings of a trend as there were at least two stalls at the festival selling stripy knee-high socks so people were probably just buying them because the socks they bought got destroyed by the mud. I didn't get any because the brand they had comes in two sizes and they only stocked the smaller one and I already have one pair of purple-lilac striped socks in that size and they don't fit properly.

Also being worn were a lot of tutus from a stall called "Shut Up 'N' Dye" (I think), which weren't good as they were abused by being paired with horrendous slogan t-shirts (see below), but I did see a really gorgeous green silk skirt and purple cardigan on the stall - neither of which I could buy as I didn't have enough cash with me, sob - mixed amongst the rest of the stall's standard hippie-style clothes. Which shows you should never judge a stall by the stock out front! I also had a nice chat to the stallholder who had long, somewhat dreadlocked pink hair, and was disappointed to learn that grey hair can be hard to dye bright colours. I had been anticipating dying my hair purple when I go grey too. Maybe dying technology will have moved on by then! She complained that the end of her hair was still orange from an old dye job and wouldn't take the pink she tried to cover it up with so it didn't match and I said it was cool, like sunset hair, which she seemed really pleased with.

The Bad:

Idiots who didn't wear rain macs. No matter how stylin' your outfit is, it will not look good sopping wet and clinging to your skin/rest of your clothes.

There were some really, really, really, horrendous slogan t-shirts. These included such 'gems' as "WILL F*** FOR COKE" (even if it's true, why do you want to announce it to the world in black capitals on pink?) and "I'M A C***" (No, no you are not.). But the one that made me want to deliver a swift kick to the nether regions of the wearer the most was "I F***ED YOUR GIRLFRIEND" (No, you didn't.).
Things that t-shirt says about you as a person:
a) you are less of an a'hole than you want to be, which paradoxically makes you more of an a'hole
b) no one has ever cheated on their partner with you
c) any thinking person should avoid you.
Come on people. Most people seeing the t-shirt probably didn't even have a girlfriend, and if they did, they're not going to get all paranoid because of a t-shirt.

The Bizarre:

My friend Adele's SexyMac - a rain mac I believe she borrowed from her dad that proved strangely alluring to men on multiple occasions. I wrote a song/parody of 'SexyBack' by Justin Timberlake about it the other day, here is an excerpt:

I'm wearing the SexyMac; YEAH!
Them other ladies don't know how to act; YEAH!
You think it's special... what's covering my back; YEAH!
You look around and have a lust attack; YEAH!
(take it to the tents)

I'm a dirty babe
Sleeping in a tent and spending the day at the rave
My waterproof clothing makes you misbehave
No other coat or jacket can make you feel this way
(take it to the arena)

Come here boy, go ahead be gone with it
Admire my mac, go ahead be gone with it
VIP, showers don't work in it
SexyMac makes up, go ahead be gone with it
For the filth, go ahead be gone with it
Look at that hood, go ahead be gone with it
It makes you smile, go ahead be gone with it
Come here boy, go ahead be gone with it
And get your SexyMac on, go ahead be gone with it