Governors Ball Style Special: Can You Look Good in a Mud Swamp?

Let’s just be upfront about this: no one looks good at a festival if it's been raining for 15 straight hours. Come completely prepared and you’re smart. When the weather sucks this hard, looking stylish really shouldn’t be your primary concern. Ensuring you don't get pneumonia is THE REAL CONCERN. If you’re defiantly wearing a bikini and short-shorts, despite the biblical storms, then you look like a desperate, attention-seeking dickhead.

You might imagine this three-day music binge to be Coachella’s refined, East Coast cousin, but unfortunately, due to the weather conditions on the Friday turning the site into a cesspool, and your average festival goers inexplicable fashion-based patriotism, Coachella may just have won out. Still, there were some prevalent trends—beyond garbage bag chic—which were deployed with varying degrees of success.

Dress Like Your Favorite Animal
Leopard, snow leopard, tiger, baby kitten, cheetah, zebra, dalmation, animal print was everywhere. But the key to looking like Edie Sedgwick or Anne Bancroft in The Graduate, as opposed to either MJ or Bruno Mars…

…is to wear printed animal hide sparingly.

Or if you have balls bigger than a tuberous bushcricket (in relation to your bodyweight), just slap an animal face across the chest of your tie-dye tee. Blank expression optional, but we applaud this guy’s flagrant disinterest in animal print and his total love of this lion’s face.

Flowers All Over Your Body
This look is big at every music festival around the globe because people think it’s a nice little nod to 60s counter-culture, Woodstock, and free love (AKA smelly field fumblings). Also every little girl wanted to look like a Flower Fairy when shes was a kid. But again, people, please. If you’re wearing flowers all over your body, you probably don’t need a crown to top it off. The overall effect just makes us think of those terrible drugstore hippy Halloween costumes made from highly flammable, snaggable nylon, which in turn, make your pits smell like toe-cheese.

American Flags Everywhere (Plus Two Token Canadians)
In the UK, if you wear a British flag anywhere on your person, you might as well declare yourself a BNP sympathizer. Britpop is done, Geri has retired her Union Jack dress, Liam and Patsy split up over a decade ago, and patriotism tastes uncomfortable. Despite the Queen’s Jubilee last year, the Olympics, and the world’s weird interest in a balding royal and his posture-perfect wife, you still wouldn’t be caught dead sporting a British flag. So it is strange when you see people wearing their nation’s flag in their hair, on their butts, on their boobs, and on their glasses, while hanging out with a girl in a Native American Indian headdress. Let’s not even get into that, but did Gwen Stefani teach us nothing? Not feeling it.

Dress Like Your Friends
Animals like to travel in pacts and so do humans. Either these girls are really down with Nautique Chic or they’re on some sort bachelorette party.

Wet look hair is big this year, so these girls are on the money. Crop tops are also a popular choice, which, if you can stand the cold, kinda works in this situation, because your stomach is wipe clean. Speaking of wipe clean…

Wear Everything
There is a lot going on here. This girl is sporting a leather (or pleather) skirt, which is smart, because like exposed skin, leather-pleather can be filthy one minute and gleaming clean the next. This girl likes to drink, but she also knows the importance of hydration. That means she won't be that annoying black out drunk pal who passes out face first in the mud. You know, the one you inevitably have to miss half the bands to look after. This girl? She’s sensible. This can also be gleaned from the fact that she's sporting the biggest earplugs on earth. She’s got her knuckle-duster studded ring on, so if someone tries to grope her, she's prepared and can just knock them out. She can look after herself! But there are also elements of this outfit that are confusing. Bowler hats: why? Just generally: why? This t-shirt is brain-bending too. Kittens + car = ? On some construction site, somewhere, a builder is showing off his Grand Canyon butt crack because this girl walked off with his suspenders. :(

Have an Attitude
A lot of effort has gone into these “looks.” Especially this guy on the right. That's some deeply thought-out color coordination, some thoroughly considered print clashes, and he’s exposing and flexing his calf muscles which are frankly, mesmerizing. Crucially though, these guys have accessorized their outfits with seriously surly expressions.

Find Love
When wading through a mud swamp, it’s always great to have someone to lean on. Hugs make happy.

Commit to Your Crazy
If you’re gonna go there, you may as well go all out.

Style Stage is an ongoing partnership between Noisey & Garnier Fructis celebrating music, hair, and style.