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Blow Out (and about) // The best three things at Bestival*

*actually, there were shit-loads of great things at Bestival, but these three were okay to publish in the public domain worth blogging about.

The Oxfam Fashion shop


I’ve long been a fan of a charity shop. The smell of mothballs doesn’t bother me, nor being surrounded by the cast of Cocoon. The sensation of buying something for mere pounds AND doing my bit for charity is almost orgasmic. Almost. Add into the mix that superior feeling you get when someone enquires about one of your purchases and being able to smugly respond, ‘Oh this? It’s thrifted‘ (the way all the fashion bloggers say it, yeah?)

So I was thrilled to see Oxfam’s on-site vintage shop at this year’s Bestival. They’d even managed to snare sleb donations to tie-in with the festival’s ‘rock stars, pop stars and divas’ theme, including items from The Cuban Brothers, The Village People (sadly not the Indian head dress) Twiggy, CocknBull kid, Will Young and Howard Marx. Fashion blogger/model/DJ/etc Bip Ling donated a bag customised by her mum, fashion illustrator Tanya Ling.

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The Oxfam shop was in a prime location near the main stage and so was constantly heaving, plus the fact it stocked bright orange sleeping bags for a fiver and had a cheery team of folk on hand to offer advice on customising your garms meant it made a pretty impressive £31,000 over the weekend.

Find out more about Oxfam Fashion here

Bright Light Bright Light

brightlightx2
I freakin’ LOVE this guy. He’s easy both on the eye and on the ear. A singer/songwriter and DJ with a penchant for ’90s dance, I first bumped into Monsieur Bright Light x 2 (Rod Thomas) at a party he was DJ-ing at by asking him what was ‘big in his box?’ Sure.

Playing his Bestival set on Saturday Night AKA fancy dress night, my love was cemented further when Rod and his band came on stage dressed as The Pet Shop Boys and their collaborators. There were cone hats! And Dusty! Oh my. Throw in a ’90s mash-up half way through, and you can imagine, I got a little over-excited. That had nothing to do with being chased around by a man dressed as a vagina. Nope.

You should catch Bright Light Bright Light live too, if you can. If you’re lucky, you might be able to bag tickets to his forthcoming event for London Fashion Week and niftily coinciding with the release of his second single, Disco Moment, this Wednesday.

21st September, 12 Bayley Street, London // tickets £10 available here

The Cuban Brothers

The Cuban Brothers
Wow. What a mind fuck this lot are. I’ve seen them before, many a time. But still find it difficult to describe The Cuban Brothers… ‘experience’. They’re Cuban (well, not really) and brothers (well, not really) and their music is part funk, part hip-hop, part Latin, part disco, part soul… (have I missed any genres?) Their act is essentially a fusion of comedy, salsa and b-boy breakdancing. With ‘taches and fringed unitards. Oh, and rollerskates.

As they themeselves put it

The Cuban Brothers are entertainment personified. They will make you laugh, sing along, cry with joy, shit your pants and shake your booty. For those who haven’t experienced the Cuban Brothers yet, get on the end of it right now!

This is a pretty old video but it sums up Los Hermanos Cubanos rather nicely:


For info and tour dates visit www.thecubanbrothers.com

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