Music, Fashion & Flowers

Having personally been to 3 Splendour festivals now I can honestly say 2016 was the best so far hands down. The first year we had just moved up to Byron Bay and it was also my first Australian Music Festival so I didn't really know what to expect. I think we managed to do 3 days, bussing in and out, morning to night. It was pretty overwhelming as South Africa doesn't have anything quite like this (except for the 10 day Afrika Burns, our answer to Burning Man). Here's a pic of me and my bestie Deja at sunset 2014, knee deep in fun and beers...

Then came 2015 Splendour in the grass festival - or as anyone who went last year "Splendour in the Mud" omg so-much-mud... shivers...

I decided to take Dreamers and Drifters to the festival with a pop up stall - freak I was so unorganised, ended up taking all of my stock instead of a selection, worked 4 days straight from 9am - 11pm on adrenaline, stress and coffee (as well as the occasional drink, it was a festival after all). I didn't see any bands except for my favourite on the last night when @frameandform said "that's it, you are done" and physically dragged me to see some live music. He also bought me a bottle of Moet to celebrate, my heart melts! 

I digress, so it rained for all of the days and turned the ground to a black tar (literally you have never seen mud like this before) girls were coming in covered in mud - their face, arms, legs -buying a new outfit and chucking their old one in the bin. It was Armageddon out there. And then obvs a lot of my stock was muddied so that added to my stresses..

A photo of me at a less stressed out moment (setting up).

There must have been a bit of "I'll never do this again" but the lure of music, fun and getting my label out there got me and I went back for more.

Along comes festival 2016 - hello SUNSHINE I FREAKEN LOVE YOU.
I approached the whole set up with a better plan, got a smaller stall so it would be more manageable and took only a selection of festival styles. What you don't realise as a festival goer is the amount of set up time pre-festival, I was there for 2 full days before you arrived. And the tents go up like a week before, it's a real balancing act of keeping your energy going and not crashing on a bed of tequila on day one. (I learnt this lesson from 2014)

Brought the LOVE SEAT back and covered it with fresh flowers - a real highlight for me was hearing people say "got a pic on this last year let's keep up the tradition" and I also added a new feature: a 3m wide macrame curtain for the front of the stall. It took us (6 friends and the direction of Yarniweaves) about 4 days to complete. 

The actual festival was epic, so much good food, SO MUCH extra stuff to look at - yup this year I made time to have a good look around. Even had a Tibetan monk blessing - amazingly humbling!
Friday night was my "git crazy" night (I like to give everything 100% haha) Saw my 2016 favourite THE STROKES with @frameandform - so much cool. You can't even imagine the level of cool. Damn. Finished off the night in the Teepee Forest stoked.

Here are a few style pics I took of festival babes:
You can view the full DAY 1 album here: http://bit.ly/2aRODZG

Day 2 style full album on Facebook here: http://bit.ly/2aRRotW
Here are a few of my favourites...

Day 4's album of Festival style is massive, so best to just view the photos here:
http://bit.ly/2aTzU0Z

So all in all a VERY SUCCESSFUL Splendour in the Grass 2016. So happy I went, got Dreamers & Drifters out there - met so many people in our little pop up shop, and had soooo much fun. Looking forward to 2017 (crazy eyes!) 

Thanks for reading, leave a comment below about how your festival went.
Love, Verity