We started the festival season at the Isle of Wight Festival and ended the summer back on the isle for Bestival.
We've had James Walsh play in the Oxfam Festival Shop, caught up with Bip Ling at the Latitude graduate fashion show, taught many festival goers how to upcycle their clothes and walked far too many miles in wellies to remember!
We wanted to share with you what a day in the life of team fash at festivals is like. You can get festivl style inspiration and find all of our blog posts from this summer here.
Here is a sample of one of our days at Bestival....
8.00... It's hard sleeping as the sunrise hits your tent and you're up! A few shouts to team fash and we wake up.
8.20... An essential morning ritual is a quick coffee at the Oxfam Stewards tent. We have a chat with some of the volunteers finishing and starting their shifts - and find out about some of the great bands they have been to so far.
8.30... Breakfast is usually a cereal bar - a festi essential for team fash!
9.00... We walk to the showers but the queue is so long that Tanya and I improvise with a bucket to wash our hair. Nothing is more glam than dipping your head in a bucket!
We go into our tent (nicknamed Big Mel) and decide what to wear. Tom keeps it casual with a t-shirt and jeans but Tanya and I have a good 20 minutes of quick changing until we find the right outfit. A flash of make-up and a splash of glitter - we are ready to go.
9.45... One thing we have learned this season is never underestimate the weather or the walking!
We head to the car park to get our laptop and camera only to find we can't exit the site where we entered. A detour, a chat with security and a hike and a half later - we are at the car. We have a quick snack and set off on site.
11.00... We reach the Bestival press tent and plan our day. The site is just starting to fill up with hungry festival goers so Tanya and I decide to style spot. We go through the line up and choose which celebs would be good for Tom to style spot on stage. It's gotten a bit colder now and Tanya and I wish we would have brought a jacket (as I said *never underestimate the weather and walking*)
11.45... Tanya and I head out on site at Bestival. It's such a beautiful and surreal festival with areas such as the psychedelic worm stage and magic meadows field. We whip out the style spot cards and circle the to meet, photographing and chat to the most stylish people - while tweeting away. We love hearing people's stories and always get really excited when we ask "where did you get that dress" and they answer "Oxfam".
12 ... Tom heads out to the press pit to snap Lucy Rose first- a busy day unfolds muscling in with the other photographers and press.
16.00... We meet up back at the press tent and have a quick catch up. Tom forgot his SPF suncream (see our festival essentials blog post!) but my handbag is like Mary Poppins' bag so I pass mine over.
Tanya and I listen to Tom tell us about what the artists were wearing and we show Tom the photos of who we have spoken to on site.
16.15... We find a free plug and get the laptop up and running. We start writing our blog posts, editing photos and decide what photos would work for our Blog, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest social media sites.
The internet cuts in and out but we get there in the end and schedule the blogs to go out.
18.30... I repeat *never underestimate the weather and walking* - we set off back to the staff camp site for tea but this is a long walk so we have a chat along the way and take in the festival atmosphere. Tanya and I certainly felt the cold!
19.15... We have tea from the on site caterer Nuts. We all go for the chicken and mushroom pie on the menu with salad and chips - we definitely made the right choice. We have a quick chat with the Oxfam campaigns team who are on site promoting Food Power - we love hearing from them what food saving ideas the festival goers have said. Our fav so far is: "stale bread makes great toast".
20.00... A quick change as its getting cold - again Tom is practical and puts a warm jacket on. Tanya and I faff about seeing how we can show off our best Oxfam clothes whilst still wearing a rain jacket!
20.30... We begin the walk back on site - its getting dark now and the Arcadia section of the site is buzzing!
21.15... Tom goes off to snap Florence and the Machine while Tanya and I head to the Oxfam Festival Shop. We have a chat with deputy manager Fran and the volunteers about how the day has been. I am like a magpie and I spot a beautiful rail of sparkly clothes, Tanya has a look through the vintage section. Needless to say we leave with a few items - Tanya a delicate lace robe and I buy a black slinky beaded dress. Our festival shop is the best!!
22.00... We all meet back up at the press tent. Tom tells us what Flo was like and Tanya and I swoon over the pictures. We have a bag of jellies and set off onto the site catching the last of Flo's set - we got the love!
22.30... We decided to yarn bomb a Bestival landmark and chose a piano close to the Oxfam Festival Shop. Yarn bombing involves covering an everyday landmark/street item with wool and yarn. We used Oxfam donated wool and covered the piano in Oxfam messages about the shop, volunteering and food power.
It's a long night and takes us five hours to complete but in this time we spoke to so many people about Oxfam. We wanted to do this to showcase Oxfam messages but in a groovy way that would engage with the cool Bestival festival goers.
I haven't given too much information away here as we have written a blog post about the project - so for more information take a look here.
3.30 am... We finish and walk home - we would love a dance but we are too hungry and decide to head off (i.e to Big Mel our tent). We are saving ourselves for Stevie Wonder on Sunday!
4.14ish... We arrive back at staff camping and in true festival style end the night with a burger!
A lie in is due before we start the next day...
I hope you've enjoyed taking a look at what we do on site - we would love to hear about your festival experiences from this summer - have you visited the Oxfam Festival Shop and bought something you love? have you made an upcycled t-shirt scarf with us?
Until summer 2013...
