Gearing Up for Music Festival Season: Have Fanny Pack, Will Travel

In less than a week, I’ll be on my way to the 2012 Sasquatch music festival. Good thing I just found my ca. 2009 silver American Apparel fanny pack under a pile of clothes. (Note: The vintage fanny pack shown above is from modcloth.com and has more of a Solid Gold dancer feel than my monochromatic model).

I’m delighted that fanny packs are enjoying a renaissance. They’re handy, obviously, and it’s easy to muster enough irony to carry off the look. In fact, when I bought mine a few summers ago, I figured it was to my advantage to choose a bold color or print, something like the American Apparel vinyl model below. A neutral might suggest that I take myself and my wardrobe too seriously. The Jansport pack photo, above, is from rei.com. I covet its wild spirit. The catch is that I often wear prints. And while WanderChic is all for clashing patterns, even she knows her limits.

[Cue the Wayne’s World time travel music with wavy hand gestures.] Back in the day, I had a big, clunky fanny pack that I only took on youth group trips to Ohio’s King’s Island or Cedar Point theme parks and only because my mom made me. An over-the-shoulder purse would be impractical, she reasoned, as would a backpack. I can’t remember what the other kids did with their lunch money, tissues, and chap stick. We didn’t have cell phones, so that wasn’t an issue. I didn’t have keys to anything other than a diary. I was too young to drive, so I didn’t have a license. What did I need to carry around, anyway?

I’m sure the cool kids figured out a more elegant solution, perhaps stashing their lunch and souvenir money in the tightly wound cuffs of their pegged Guess? jeans.

Not only has the reputation of fanny packs evolved, but so has the nomenclature. While American Apparel calls it like it is, you can find similar storage systems referred to as: waist pack, waist purse, hip pack, hip pouch, hip bag.

Another name is belt bag, such as this one from rocksandsalt, a Brooklyn, NY based etsy store (photo above is from their site.) OK, and I take back what I said about neutral colors. It looks really good in khaki, and the asymmetrical shape gives off a funky utility vibe. The belt bags are also available in “safety orange,” kelly green, metallic hot pink, and other sassy shades.

One of my favorite etsy finds, above, is from TheGlassHorse (photo is theirs.) If only the Pekingese puppy add-on were a fluffy orange cat, I’d be a goner.

In February, I was excited to join the cast of the 2012 Listen To Your Mother Spokane show. LTYM is a national event in which writers read nonfiction about motherhood. We read at the Bing Crosby theater downtown on Mother’s Day (photo above from Elise Raimi).

I know what you’re thinking: but Wanderchic, aren’t you just a stylish cat lady? No Cinnabon in your oven, right? What could you have to say about mothers?

Well, friends, I have a mother, so I qualify.

Our rehearsals focused on the arc of the show, figuring out the microphones, pacing ourselves as we read. But the email chatter a few days before the show bandied about that perennial question: what to wear?

The day before the show, I strolled around the nearby vintage stores and the chichi mall, but didn’t find anything that wowed me. In a weak moment at Nordstrom, I tried on these Miz Mooz shoes below (photo from Infinity Shoes). They didn’t have my size in stock in green, and I wasn’t feeling neutral. The coast was clear!

I ended up wearing some Franco Sarto pinkish retro looking shoes I picked up last year at Buffalo Exchange. I decided it was more important to feel confident than have some new threads. I wore a knee-length black and white polka dot dress that I bought a few years ago at Target. That thing is indestructible. And it makes me feel like the modest, slightly neurotic version of a pinup girl.

It’s likely we all have those pieces in our closet, the old favorites that fit well and hold up.Sometimes these become our favorite travel clothes, too. I think of these outfits as road-tested. (It would be more accurate to say classroom or church or date tested, but you get the idea.)

LTYM was a powerful event. I read a lighter piece about liking my life but also hoping I don’t miss my chance to be a mom (and venting some passive aggressive feelings toward Hot Moms with baby joggers who hog the sidewalk). All evening, in the theater lobby and at the after party at Sapphire Lounge, women I did not know came up to me and said things like “I hope you get to be a mom” or “I was 39 when I conceived my first child.”

So I got to wear a pretty dress AND get kindhearted strangers to say all sorts of intimate, encouraging things to me. Total win.

I’m in  a sappy mood, in case you hadn’t noticed, so I’ll finish up my belated Mother’s Day post with a couple of photos (one of my Nana Sheets holding my dad, the other of my Nana Taylor, holding my aunt and my infant mom).

Also, here’s what I’m learning from the LTYM experience:

Breathe (this was written in all caps on a piece of paper in the greenroom at the theater. Handy mantra! Memorable. Catchy).

If you’ve got a Listen To Your Mother event in your area, go next year.

If you’ve got stories inside, write them down. Share them with others. We love to hear them.

High five your mom, a mom, any nurturing person in your life.

Extra mascara doesn’t hurt when the big fat limelight beams of temporal fame are aimed at you.

Wear the shoes that allow you to walk tall, with your heart open and your head held high.

I’m heading to the Sasquatch Music Festival this Memorial Day weekend. As the semester winds down, my thoughts turn to gathering provisions. Tent, check. Cooler, check. Sunscreen, on the list. Accessories? Oh.

At last year’s Sasquatch, I couldn’t help but notice a flock of stylish hair feathers. I dig the feathers, but earrings are more my jam. And I must be in good company: a recent search on etsy for “feather earrings” yielded 32, 745 results. Whoa. Does that mean there are a bunch of naked birds flying around out there?

Ok, granted, many of these earrings are feather in shape but not in material. But still. That’s a lot of options for one WanderChic.

I’m enchanted by the earrings in the photo above, from etsy seller PrettyVagrant.

For fun, I clicked on the “geekery” category. These Mix and Match Mario Earrings are cool (photo from etsy seller Retr8Bit), though not quite what I had in mind for the festival season.

Lady Kjek’s cruelty free hand painted earrings, such as the ones below, are a little closer. (I like her specificity that “the feathers are clean and were shed naturally from a healthy cockatoo.”)

I have many weaknesses, some of which are documented on this blog. One of them is Big Lots. I zipped in there for some gift wrap, and ended up with a basket full of tape, Newman’s Own cookies, and these earrings below. I recognize that these look as though they could have come from the Big Lots pet department as well as jewelry. In fact, if I don’t move them off the table right now, cat toy is likely their destiny. They were four dollars and made in China. I’m not proud of this purchase.

I’d had a bad day, and I wanted to buoy myself up with thoughts of sweet music and overpriced corn dogs. These will tide me over until I make my final etsy selections.

What are your summer festival plans? What are your accessories of choice?