The Festival Styling Playbook for Anyone Who Refuses to Wear a Basic Outfit

Coachella is less than two weeks away. Stagecoach is right behind it. Gov Ball, Bonnaroo, and roughly 500 other festivals are stacked through the summer. If you still don’t know what you’re wearing, you’re not alone, but you’re also running out of time. 

On It’s Always Something, host Davis Roe goes through every festival outfit she’s worn since her first rave sophomore year. That would be the one where she spent a month studying John Summit’s music only to realize halfway through the set that she was actually watching Dom Dolla. Her DJ knowledge might be questionable but her styling instincts are genuinely worth stealing.

☐ Build the outfit around one piece that does the heavy lifting

Every good festival outfit has something carrying the whole look—everything else just falls in line behind it. For Roe, sometimes it’s a Jaded London dress that’s “so f*cking comfy it’s like pure cotton and hugs you so well.” Other times it’s a thrifted top she found for next to nothing. The point is picking one piece you’re obsessed with and building outward from there.

☐ Repeat one color so the whole look makes sense

Gold hoops matched with gold buckle boots. A red bandana that picks up the same tone as your sunglasses. A sparkly vest paired with boots and a fan that are all hitting the same silver finish. Same color, different pieces, and suddenly the whole fit looks like you planned it for weeks when you really just committed to a single detail. Roe literally describes building one look as “and then I did pink glasses to tie in the pink boots.” That’s it. That’s the whole trick and it works every time.

☐ Stop treating accessories like extras

Some of Roe’s hardest looks came together because of a $4 find she grabbed 20 minutes before the festival. She walked into a store, spotted a silver chain and a pair of blue glasses, and suddenly had an entire outfit. Another time she wore her pashmina as a body scarf instead of just letting it hang off her shoulders like a sad blanket. “I did it as like a scarf body look vibe,” she explains. Honestly the clothes just set the mood. It’s the weird little accessories that make someone grab your arm in the crowd and go “wait, where did you get that.”

☐ Pick one shoe and ride with it all season

Roe has worn black boots to almost every single festival she’s been to. Different tops, different skirts, completely different energy—same boots. They ground whatever chaos is happening on top and mean she’s never overthinking the shoe situation at 5 p.m. when she should already be out the door. 

And when she did finally switch it up, she didn’t go designer. “These pink boots are f*cking from Amazon and $50,” she shares. “I know when something’s cheap and it looks cheap. These look so f*cking expensive.” You don’t need 10 pairs of festival shoes. You need one great pair that works with everything and won’t make you cry when they’re covered in dirt by midnight.

☐ Hair should be part of the plan, not an afterthought

Braids, tied-in extensions that went down to her kneecaps, clips—the works. Roe treats her hair as another piece of the outfit rather than something she does last minute in the parking lot. She credits a girl from her freshman dorm for slaying her hair before one festival and admits that’s partly why her parents loved that outfit so much. “They’re like, ‘Yay, you brushed your hair.'” Also, a practical lesson she learned the hard way: don’t wear your hair down in a crowd. “Your hair will be f*cked.”

Listen to the full episode on It’s Always Something with Davis Roe, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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