Festival Fashion | Ethical Fashion and Clothing Blog

I have been a little absent from blogging for the last couple of weeks. On Wednesday 25th July, I was in London for the Ethical Fashion Forum Source Summit – The Tipping Point. It was a hugely interesting event and I met and heard from so many inspiring people. I hope to be able to blog and share some more about this soon once the videos and notes have been published.

I was then off in our old camper van at 8am the next morning and on our way to Camp Bestival in Lulworth Castle Dorset with some fantastic music including Rolf Harris (my personal favourite), Happy Mondays and Rizzle Kicks and lots of other entertainment.

After wearing only 6 items of clothing for the Six Items Challenge in July, I decided to have a go at packing lightly with just four outfits for a whole 8 day camping. I soon realised that this was a mistake as my choice of outfits didn’t really seem to work for the huge differences in temperature between day and evening. But never mind, I survived! I didn’t take to many outfit photos as I was suffering from uncontrolably frizzy and dusty hair most of the time and I didn’t take my camera remote so had to rely on the blurry efforts of the children and Mr Style Eyes. 187 Camping and Camp Bestival The picture above features my trusty green camping parka and zebra jumper from a charity shop. I never buy new clothes for holidays any more as it seems like a waste to buy new things just for a week or two of holidays. I try and make the clothes that I already have work for me. You can find a great selection of jumpers on www.style-is.co.uk.

This is me on a particularly hot and sunny day wearing hat by Pachacuti and top by Kuyichi.

We then went on to a fantastic campsite near Weymouth and although we didn’t have tickets to see any of the sailing events for the Olympics we had a fantastic time on the beach, having a go at sailing and lots of other sports. If anyone has any time off over the next week or so I would definitely recommend a trip to Weymouth, there is so much going on and surprisingly, not that many people there so plenty of vacancies in hotels and B & B’s and campsites.

I hope you are having a lovely summer and have been enjoying the fantastic weather. Despite having a fantastic time on my hols I am glad to be back to my comfy bed, own bathroom and hot shower. I can’t wait to catch up on reading my favourite blogs over the next few days.

With warmest wishes

Ceri x

Shirt by Patagonia from Nature Shop
Denim Cut offs – upcycled from an old pair of jeans
Boots – El Naturalista
Necklace – MADE UK

I was recently contacted by Nature Shop (www.natureshop.co.uk) to see if I would like to choose an item to review from their eco friendly range of brands which includes Patagonia, Timberland, Merrell, Keen, Simple and Teva. This organic cotton shirt by Patagonia really caught my eye. I have been wanting a checked/plaid shirt for some time but have never really managed to find just the right colour, quality and cut.

Whilst I am well aware of Patagonia as one of the pioneers of sustainable clothing, I have always considered them to be purely functional clothing for extreme conditions so have never really looked properly at their range (when do I ever go out in extreme conditions?). I do however go camping in Roberta our camper van and although we were particularly lucky with the weather last year, it can get a bit nippy in the evenings particularly early in in the year. This shirt looked like a great choice for a practical but stylish camping outfit.

The shirt proved to be a great choice as it is super comfy to wear. The fabric is described as a soft organic cotton flannel and I can definitely vouch for the fact that it is really soft and warm and feels great.

I ordered a size up so that I could layer it over another for extra warmth. Whilst it is straight cut and a lot less fitted than the clothes I would usually wear, I quite liked the kind of ‘grungey boyfriend’ look to it when worn open with the sleeves rolled up and it is definitely practical for climbing in and out of the campervan crawling around in tents. I loved the reddy/ orange colour of this shirt but it is also available in a very nice Prussian Blue.

I would definitely recommend this Patagonia shirt for anyone looking for high quality clothing that also looks good for camping, festivals and other outdoorsy type stuff. The style is pretty classic so I don’t think it will ever go out of fashion.

In case you are interested, in addition to using eco/ sustainable fabrics, Patagonia are doing plenty to for the environment including giving 1% of all sales to grassroots environmental groups, innovative supply chain management, the common threads recycling initiative and confronting the issue of consumerism head on with their groundbreaking ‘Don’t buy this jacket’ advertising campaign. (more info on their eco credentials if you click on the link at the top of the page)

The necklace that I am wearing is part of a parcel of goodies that I recently received from Ethical Jewellery brand MADE UK, but more about that in another post very soon.

I hope you are having a good week, if you missed this weeks fantastic Ethical Fashion Bloggers Valentines Day DIY/ Upcycling round up,, you can check it out here.

With warmest wishes

Ceri X