Bucket hats and Barbour: Something has changed at Glastonbury and it’s working wonders

Festival fashion is a risky business. The cliches are almost impossible to avoid: flower crowns, glitter face paint, anything soaked in sequins. You’re unlikely to see any of the cool crew – your Kate Mosses, your Sienna Millers – donning such gaudy garb. This year, though, something has changed. Because this year’s Glastonbury glam squad has reverted to sartorial stereotypes, and it’s working wonders.

The standout piece you need to blend in? A Barbour jacket. Yes, those waxy khaki jackets you usually see on Sloanes and farmer’s daughters. Personally, I’ve always loathed the things, relegating them to a crowd of signet-ring-wearing, standard-shooting-weekending poshos who don’t know how to dress themselves.

They are a countryside staple, of course, but not typically for Glastonbury-goers, who hardly ever look farm-ready. This year, though, that changed as the brand hosted a pre-festival party for a selection of A-listers, with everyone from Sienna Miller and Alexa Chung to Gemma Chan and Dominic Cooper sporting the humble outerwear item.

The key to making it work is to subvert the wholesome countryside aesthetic, preferably with something grungy or girly. For Chung, it was the latter: she was photographed backstage at the festival in a silk lemon-yellow dress with white lace embellishments. Worn underneath her oversized, full-length Barbour with a pair of black boots, the writer and broadcaster offered a masterclass on how to bring back the basics.

Chan opted for a cropped version of the jacket, offsetting the khaki hue with an all-white ensemble comprising a denim mini skirt and slogan T-shirt. But the best contribution by far was from Miller, who wore a pair of white baggy combat trousers with a plaid cropped Barbour and boots, an unusually loose-fitting look for the actor. She managed to pull it off without looking as though she’d been swaddled in clothing.

Elsewhere lurked another festival faux pas, the bucket hat. Usually an item reserved for first-timers and men who like to play dress up, it has somehow become the go-to accessory for Glastonbury.

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We saw variations across the site in fuchsia, leopard print, and scarlet. Perhaps this is partly thanks to Stormzy, who was pictured wearing a red and white patterned bucket hat that matched his hooded sweatshirt and trousers. Actor Saffron Hocking also wore one with her Barbour jacket, while model Lennon Gallagher sported a beige option.

The booking of country-pop superstar Shania Twain seems to have inspired the return of another hackneyed festival look: all things cowboy. You might think there’s nothing more predictable than wearing a cowboy hat and a pair of cowboy boots to a festival (and you’d be right) but they have been everywhere this year, accessorised with all manner of fluff and sequins. The boots appear in metallic shades of hot pink, gold, silver, and turquoise. We’ve seen at least five festival goers wearing Annie’s Ibiza pairs backstage.

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In order to make this look work, again it boils down to ensuring everything else in your outfit is anything but cowboy related. Ideally that means no denim shorts with your cowboy boots, and definitely no plaid shirts. Instead, this year’s stylish cowboy comrades wore their staples with slip dresses and dungarees. Unexpected combinations work best – a rule that can be applied to almost any festival outfit.

Take bodysuits. We thought we’d been there and done that with the all-in-one. They’re hard to get in and out of, and they require an awful lot of artful negotiation when you’re trying to go to the toilet. On top of that, when worn at a festival, they’re just a bit cringe. But this year, the bodysuit game has been strong. Gone are the cheap neon variations that look as though they’ve been scraped out of the bottom of a vintage shop’s sale bin.

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This year’s coolest bodysuits are either completely sheer (requiring some careful modesty coverage – think nipple covers and oversized pants) or covered in pearls and dismanté hearts. Poster girl jumpsuits seem popular this year.

As for where everyone’s buying the rest of their festival garb: we asked around and it transpires that second-hand is reigning supreme. Most of the revellers told us they picked up their outfits from local charity shops, while others sourced their looks online from retailers such as Vinted and Depop. All my outfits this year were from the latter, and I’m pleased that I rightly predicted some of the aforementioned trends.

Bucket hat? Check, got mine from Ganni. Bodysuit? Yep, mine’s from a vintage shop. Barbour jacket? You know it. The only thing I’m missing, perhaps, is a cowboy hat. I did spot an abandoned one outside a fish and chip stand on Friday night. Let’s hope it found its way back to its owner – and that they’re not wearing it with anything that screams “yeehaw!”. The only person who can pull that off is Shania Twain herself.