Isle of Wight Festival

Hi everyone! It’s Danielle here. 

If there’s one thing we here at SBHQ enjoy more than getting our new season wardrobes, it’s the chance to go to a good festival.  Growing up in the States, we didn’t really have music festivals like you guys here in the UK do so my festival experience is rather limited.  The first year I moved here, I went to Global Gathering and got hooked on the festival atmosphere. A weekend of suspended reality where I can pretend that I can still party with the kids and have no responsibility? How can you NOT want to join in with that?  The next year I went to Glastonbury and then another go at Global Gathering the following year.  I was really getting into the whole festival thing but it’s been a couple years since I could gather a group to go to another one.    So when my boyfriend asked if I’d like to join him and his mates at the Isle of Wight festival this year, I said yes without even looking at the line up. 

This past weekend, I put all thoughts of cloth sourcing, button ordering and factories out of my mind and instead turned my attention to the difficulties of packing when the weather is all over the place, you are going with boys who don’t understand what a fashion event a festival is and I have to somehow transport my bag along with a sleeping bag, tent and other various provisions on the long walk from the car to the camp site.  And it was all worth it because it was an absolutely awesome weekend!

After setting up camp on the Friday, we settled in to the festival vibe with a visit to the Strongbow tent before heading to the main stage to see Kaiser Chiefs, Kings of Leon and the legendary Joan Jett.  And the line up went from good to brilliant with Saturday’s performances by Seasick Steve (a new favourite), Iggy and the Stooges (talk about rocking a look), Pulp and Foo Fighters.  The Foo Fighters were hands down the best act of the weekend.  If you’ve never seen them live, you are missing out! They know how to put on a performance and give the crowd what they want.  We went to bed on a high only to wake up to the pitter patter of rain against our tent the following morning.  

Foo Fighters

In an effort to avoid claustrophobia by staying in our tents until it stopped raining, we decided to walk the 20 minutes into Newport and sit out the rain in a pub for the afternoon. Oh how naive! After 5 hours in the pub, with the rain not stopping and in fact getting even worse, off we went to enjoy what we could of the last night.  Thank goodness for the Big Top tent!  We got to rock out to Cast and Manic Street Preachers covered from the pounding, relentless rain. So despite being drenched to the bone, the festival ended on a high. 

Very wet - but check out the little glimpse of the Jeanne bag from SS10

Lots of mud!

And now my weekend of suspended reality and partying with the kids is over and it’s back to the actual realities of sourcing fabrics, working on production schedules and chasing orders. But at least I can face them freshly showered, having had a full night’s sleep in a comfy bed and with the warm glow of having had the most fun, relaxing weekend I’ve had in ages!