Back in August last year I attempted what my friends have since christened “The Costume Change Catastrophe”. I’d been enjoying a thoroughly wonderful day at All Points East festival in Victoria Park – sun shining (not, for once, biblical rain which is the British way of saying “any festival that takes place outdoors”) – and had planned to meet friends for drinks afterwards in a fancy gastropub in Hackney that had recently reopened under new management. Natural wine, shared plates of delicious-sounding foods that required me to Google ingredients on my phone.
You get the picture. I had brought a spare change of clothes in my backpack because my gut told me festival-wear alone wasn’t going to cut it for dinner. How wrong I was.
About as wrong as one can be. Hackney pubs toilets are famously tiny – there was no changing in them.
But trying to shimmy into my dry-clean-only shirt while balancing my backpack on a disgusting toilet seat and wrestling a pair of trousers down my legs had me resembling an infant learning to crawl.
I dropped my phone into what I truly hope was just a puddle of water on the floor, smacked myself in the eye trying to retrieve it and when I emerged from the cubicle looked like something out of a horror film. Shirt creased. Shorts torn.
Sock missing. <p class=”rd-caption”>One sock missing. Photograph your friends in various stages of undress mid-festival if you want a trendy wallpaper print. I learned that lesson the hard way.</p><figure class=”rd-figure”><div class=”sl-f-jc-c sl-container”><div class=”post-slide”> <img class=”size-featured-news-slider-size” src=”http: //joewears.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/im1979_Festival_to_Pub_British_Summer_Outfits_That_Work_for_B_d6e25351-74b0-4101-a9a6-66a51e32e091.jpg” alt=”” im1979_Festival to Pub British Summer Outfits That Work for Men “=” d6e25351-74b0-4101-a9a6-66a51e32e091=”” /> <figcaption class=”rd-figcaption”></figcaption> </div></div></figure>The one bright spot was that my friend Vijay, still adorned in full festival regalia, wandered in right afterwards.
He looked great. Festival clothes always look great on Vijay because he always looks like he’s built festival-going into his daily wardrobe somehow. He looked at me standing blinking in the corner and said: “Mate.
What happened to your face? And why are you wearing shoes with shorts?”. He had a point.
I’d obviously put my smarter shoes on in the toilet mishap but forgot to change out of my shorts. I looked like I wasn’t sure what I was doing. Literally.
I vowed never to make such an idiot of myself in public again. The solution? Wear clothes that can transition from festival to pub with relative ease.
Problem solved. Or so I thought. The problem with summer dressing in Britain is that we invent our own categories.
Summer days when we’re going from festival to pub, barbecue to cocktail bar, cricket match to wedding, beach to restaurant encourage a weird versatility in our dress code that we revel in punishing ourselves with. We don’t just wear four seasons of clothing in one day. We plan our entire social calendars around incompatible activities because fuck it, it’s summer and we will embrace our madness.
With that in mind, you try and be one step ahead of every occasion and I’ve spent the last year thinking about how to best marry the different worlds of British summer socialising. From my many musings on the matter, here are my recommendations for festival-to-pub dressing (and beyond). The key to festival/pub outfits, and any sort of transitional summer outfit really, is having a go-to pair of trousers.
Jeans are great, but likely too hot for a full day at a festival and you risk them ending up covered in mud up past the crack your bike still smells of from spring. Chinos are safe but a bit of an obvious choice. In my opinion, it’s all about having a go-to pair of drawstring trousers in a dark colour.
Mine are from Folk and are basically my go-to summer trousers. They’re comfy enough to spend the day roaming around fields on but don’t scream“I gave up” when you turn up at a slightly nicer venue later. <p class=”rd-caption”>Business at the front, party at the back.</p><figure class=”rd-figure”><div class=”sl-f-jc-c sl-container”><div class=”post-slide”> <img class=”size-full” src=”http://joewears.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/im1979_Festival_to_Pub_British_Summer_Outfits_That_Work_for_B_d6e25351-74b0-4101-a9a6-66a51e32e091_3.jpg” alt=”” im1979_Festival_to_Pub_British_Summer_Outfits_That_Work_for_B_d6e25351-74b0-4=”” 101-a9a6-66a51e32e091_3.jpg” /> <figcaption class=”rd-figcaption”> <p>“Drawstring trousers are essentially high-end sweats,” said my personal style guru of a friend Jane when I asked her about this exact topic for a similar article last year. “They’re the menswear equivalent of a mullet. Business up front, party in the back.”</p> </figcaption></div></div></figure>Deep breath.
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Fabric choices are everything here. Pick a sturdy cotton or linen blend that won’t crease easily, will keep you cool during the hotter hours and won’t hold onto rain should summer finally grace us with a shower or two. I made the mistake once of wearing polyester festival-wear and by god did I look like a chimichanga walking into the beer garden afterwards still radiating festival-fields heat.
Onto tops. If it’s summer, you’ll be sweating. Even when wearing the right fabrics you’ll be sweating.
It might rain. You’ll get sweaty again. Embrace layers.
Get yourself a sturdy t-shirt as your base layer. Natural fabrics again – I’m partial to a slubby cotton tee – and go for something a little bit heavier than the whispers-of-air-you-can-buy-now variety. Layer that bad boy with an overshirt or lightweight jacket and you’ve got yourself a wardrobe that can tackle anything from daytime casual to evening sharp in one fell swoop.
My overshirt game is strong. It’s one of those pieces of clothing that no one really talks about but is hugely underrated in British menswear. It’s not a shirt.
It’s not a jacket. It falls somewhere between smart and casual and works beautifully in our wishy-washy weather. I picked up a navy cotton twill one from Universal Works years ago and it’s come with me on every summer adventure since.
Throw it open over a t-shirt during the day, buttoned up when it gets cooler. The patch pockets are big enough for festival tickets, your phone and the emergency cereal bar you’ll inevitably squash into nothingness but it’s smart enough to not look stupid if you keep that bad boy buttoned up for dinner. Shoes are always a sticking point when it comes to outfits that stray outside of the usual “shirt and trousers” formats most of us are used to.
Boots are going to get ruined at most UK festivals what with our track record with the weather. Trainers are usually your best option but there are plenty of things to consider there. White canvas frescos may look cool for about five minutes at a festival before turning into a cautionary textile-graded allegory.
Opt for darker leather or suede to help hide inevitable stains but still look intentional, not borrowed-from-your-dad’s-closet trying too hard. Mine are Clarks Desert Boots in dark brown suede. They have the comfort factor needed to spend all day on your feet, can tackle most festival terrain (unless we actually get a Glastonbury-style mudbath) and don’t look like crap with your newly slimmed-down festival wardrobe when it’s time to step up your game.
And now for the moment you’ve all been waiting for. accessories. Watch: buy yourself a proper watch. Something that’ll taken seen some shit but isn’t so fancy that you’ll fret about losing it at a festival.
Mine’s a Timex, strapped with a navy NATO strap that’s taken multiple festival-beer mosh pits and pub garden chinwags.
Sunglasses: invest in a nice pair of shades. No one is saying you can’t wear silly festival glasses – I love a bit of mirrored lunacy as much as the next guy – but if you’re doing the whole festival to pub thing you’ll thank me when you don’t look like you’re still not quite ready for “real life” when asking the waiter for a top-up on your ‘natural’ wine.
Scarf/bandana: who even wears these anymore? Everyone should. Seriously.
They’re amazing. Not only do they come in handy for keeping the sun off your neck down at the festival but are perfect for wearing as a glorified face mask when the dust and mud fly. Team with your outfit as an accent colour in the evening and suddenly your stupidly simple summer outfit has some serious style points.
Bag: invest in a decent canvas tote bag. No flimsy festival sponsor-binapproved rubbish that’s going to lose half its straps at the worst possible moment. You want something small enough not to single yourself out as “the lad who turned up to a festival with a rucksack” but big enough to sling your lightweight jacket over should it cool down, hold your water bottle and catch all the bits and bobs you’ll accumulate throughout the day.
