Give 60s festival fashion a whirl and rock these looks today

Try on some Woodstock music festival fashion for size and rock the 60s festival fashion trends in your everyday world because they never did go out of style.

Rock your style persona with some 60s festival fashion ala Woodstock music scene and the like, and let that musical festival fashion vibe add some 60s and 70s style savvy to your day-to-night looks today!

Richie Havens performs at the Woodstock Festival, August 1969

60s Festival Fashion Season

Traditionally, the fashion calendar has followed the four seasons of Nature – Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall. But there is a fifth fashion season that celebrates all things related to music festival fashion, from Woodstock music festival style to all the other nostalgic yet still relevant 60s festival fashion events.

While 60s festival fashion and its current interpretations vary from place to place – New York to California, East Coast to West Coast, and on both sides of the Atlantic – there are some common themes and trends to music festival fashion that transcend every place and time.

Flower crowns, boho-chic dresses and tunics, all kinds of crochet and knit inventions, big floppy straw hats and washed-out blue denim bell-bottom jeans are just some of the perennial favourites of 60s festival fashion that have carried through to today’s music festival scene and beyond.

So, don’t limit yourself to wearing 60s festival fashion for music festival events alone.

Photo of festival goers riding on boot of a car, near the Woodstock music festival on August 18, 1969

A look back at 60s Festival Fashion

Rock these iconic styles and trends in your everyday life, from full-on 60s festival fashion trends for picnics, parties and weekend wear, to curated pieces like that retro tie-dye summer dress to work or that crochet vest over a turtleneck sweater and jeans for your next girls’ night out.

• The music festival scene entered the fashion psyche as far back in the 1960s and 1970s, with the original and first Woodstock music festival as the grand-daddy of them all.

• 60s festival fashion was epitomized by the free and easy looks of bohemian fashion, with flared jeans, tie-dyed psychedelic prints, tunic tops, fringed suede jackets and lots of florals from flower crowns down to floral-embellished flip-flops bringing music festivalfashion to life.

• Beatniks, peace-loving-and-promoting activists and rights-for-all trend setters discarded their shoes in favour of bare feet at each music festival, and wore flowers in their hair to promote the celebration of Nature in all its varied glory.

• 60s festival fashion also saw the rise of prairie chic, with plenty of peasant blouses, prairie dresses and embroidered tunics for a back-to-basics look that was comfortable, easy to wear and yet so very pretty.

Publicity photo for Grateful Dead’s album American Beauty

Top Trends of 60s Festival Fashion

Interestingly, 60s fashion had several sub-cultures associated with them. Here’s a taste of just some:

• Gender-neutral dressing:

Yes, 60s festival fashion was all about young guys and girls adopting common looks to celebrate the freedom of music festival style.

Long, flowing locks adorned both male and female heads, and were held back by headbands in embroidered leather for a Western look, or tie-dyed brights for a boho spin.

Both guys and gals wore colourful patterned blankets over their shoulders to ward of the evening chill of the outdoor music festival scene and you’d be hard-pressed to identify gender under those big blankets!

• Global fashion trends:

60s festival fashion was all about ethnic styles from around the world, from India’s gaudy-bright printed tunics to hand-embroidered Peruvian ponchos, again in the brightest colours of the rainbow.

These global influences were celebrated as diverse and inclusive fashion inspiration adopted by music festival fashionistas around the world.

Publicity photo for Iron Butterfly’s single In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.1969

• Homemade, handmade 60s festival fashion:

Another huge trend of 60s festival fashion – and a fun way to spend a weekend today – was self-made, one-of-a-kind tie-dyed clothes that ranged from T-shirts to tunics to dresses and shirts.

Picture these objects of self-expression in the palest of pastels or the brightest of rainbow hues and then imagine them thrown on over your favourite pair of blue jeans and you have captured the spirit of 60s festival fashion.

Knitting, crocheting and stitching one’s own outfits was also a hugely popular trend among 60s festival fashion aficionados.

These were prized skills back in the day and have seen a resurgence in popularity today, as the world’s population yearns for self-expression and skills that embody a back-to-basics ethic.

Woodstock music festival goers wore their hand-made knits and crocheted pieces with joy and pride, and each piece was unique and one-of-a-kind so doubly-celebrated for being special and a labour of love.

And lest we forget, the environmentalists had their unique “Re-use and save the planet” sub-culture too! 60s festival fashion and its evolution as music festival style for the modern age was, and is, all about re-loving and re-using clothes found in thrift shops and consignment stores, very much in keeping with the “save the planet” sentiment of the typical and iconic 1960s music festival fan.

Music festival attendees would source their denim jackets, flowing peasant dresses, faux leather jewellery and crochet vests from their local thrift stores or their favourite main street consignment outlets, giving these garments and accessories a new lease on life and celebrating the circle of re-use instead of fast fashion.

Links [i] [ii] [iii] [iv] [v]

[i] https://www.smiffys.com/collections/60s-fancy-dress

[ii] https://www.boredpanda.com/woodstock-women-fashion-1969/

[iii]  https://www.pinterest.co.uk/WoodstockFest/what-to-wear-to-woodstock/

[iv] https://www.vogue.com/article/woodstock-music-festival-fashion-60s-style-trends

[v] https://www.redbull.com/us-en/a-guide-to-music-festival-fashion-through-the-ages

• 1960s