Vintage at Goodwood  last weekend set a new bench mark for stylish, glamorous and fashionable festival goers to aspire too.  The exquisite brain child of the Wayne Hemmingway partnership (the design folks behind Red or Dead) who wanted to inject a little style back into the UK’s festival calendar. They succeeded and Vintage felt more like partying at some sophisticated Retro-UK Film Set where the punters were all extras! It’s been a long time since I’ve been to a festival where so many people made an effort to dress up and the amount of preparation, infrastructure and goodies that went into this bash makes Pride look tawdry, cheap and passé.


At each themed pavilion from the Palm Court Empire Styled 30’s tent, all the way through to a reconstructed 1990’s warehouse rave from the Quattro crew, attention to detail was all and it paid off in setting the ambience for a weekends pleasure. With a 80’s roller disco, DJ’d by our own fabulous Kate Wildblood, to the 70’ Soul Casino Mecca ballroom marquee there was something for everyone. The main stage headlined with performances over the weekend from Wanda Jackson, Sandy Shaw, The Feeling, The Buzzcocks and Peter Hook from Joy Division, Mick Hucknall, Beverly Knight, The Faces - minus Rod Stewart - and Sophie Ellis Bextor.

There were numerous vintage set pieces, from The Chaps Olympiad, a 1940’s romp in surreal sportish activity, to fashion shows; including  Hardy Aimes. Classic cars and cloths abounded as did all the authentic, quality food. No tat was visible anywhere, the grounds were cleaned every night and even the weather stayed agreeable.

I caught a Norman Jay set by chance and watched an orchestra perform a Phillip Glass piece while a ‘happening’ took place around us in a huge illuminate inflated 60’s bubble tent. With a vintage fun fair and a constructed ‘High Street’ with some of the best brands in the UK taking space it was a real classy treat.
The crowd were friendly, party orientated and terribly nice to each other and although there was a lot of late night partying going on I didn’t see any of the rather messy behaviour usual at these events. Folks were both considerate and subtle with their partying. There were some original and delightful costumes too.

Promenading was all!


High standards and attention to detail extended to the camp sites (including Glamping) with hot showers and proper cleaned flush toilets ending – for ever -  the usual horror of festival lavatories. Each block was cleaned daily and had an attendant. A simple treat.


There was relay mixed bag of ages, types and hairdo’s, lot’s of hardcore vintage lovers from every decade dressed up to the ninty-nines, a smattering of stars, fashion everywhere, art and performance all around and enough LGBT folk to keep the tone just right, why there weren’t more gay folks at this festival is a mystery, you missed out folks, I’d recommend reserving your tickets for next years event asap.

Vintage at Goodwood was a fantastic inaugural event, more than living up to it’s elegantly understated publicity “of a celebration of five decades of British cool” and surpassing my expectations of what it could achieve.  It felt good to be part of the beginning of something so special, so cool and so classically vintage, this was Retro-Chic Manufactured-Nostalgia at it’s very best.




More Information from The Vintage Website here: