Festival Fashion: Music & Diabetes Part 2

Festival Fashion Image: Rachel D

Before going to Glastonbury I spent probably a total of two evenings preparing outfits and make-up. I rummaged through my parents wardrobe for the perfect hat and long socks that said,

"yeah I just nonchalantly came across this vintage Panama...oh and these over the knee socks? Yeah they're just practical, they have nothing to do with giving me an air of Alexa Chung gauntness."

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At my fevered peak I may have even read the odd article on 'festival fashion.' Like a good feminist researcher though, I absorbed and then rejected it all (other than this sage advice from Lauren Laverne about portaloos and sandals). In the end I just took three summer dresses and leggings, two pairs of trousers, two vests, two long tees, two jumpers, a thousand socks...and that panama hat. I used up all my clothes and genuinely didn't care what I looked like, other than the day I tried to wear a summer dress without a bra. The alien pregnant look lasted five minutes. I don't know how men with insulin pumps cope without bras. Well actually they probably cope because their clothing doesn't tend to rely on a stream-lined figure and they have pockets galore. In the safe androgyny of trousers and shorts, pumps clip on perfectly, giving you a look of a doctor circa ER's Mark Green. For men cannulas are typically hidden beneath long loose fabric. But as a woman, who likes fashion, it's more complicated.

Prior to the pump I spent years hiding my thighs, or constantly having to assure myself that no one in the pool or at the beach gave a second look at my insulin-induced lumpy, bruised legs...and then worrying that meant no one would give me a second look. The pump changed that it said, 'here is my pancreas! It's not hidden, it's not a failing secret, it's a visible part of me. Deal.'

The pump changed that, it said: 'here is my pancreas! It's not hidden, it's not a failing secret, it's a visible part of me. Deal.'

On the whole I now like the fact that people can see my cannula through my tights, at my shorts hemline, or see the tubing as it curves over my bare middriff. But if I was a teenager again, I think I would have really struggled to find the confidence to embrace or reject the cut-off denims that pervaded Glastonbury. It was striking how gorgeous all the girls at Glastonbury looked. Hair braided or tousled with flower bands, tans that didn't reflect our vitamin D deficient-summer, Shellac nails and perfect make-up, shorts, crop tops and parkas that all seem to come from the same personalised festival fashion articles. 

The guys on the other hand looked like guys do, as if lifted from the lounges, pubs and clubs across the country, all nonchalant t-shirts and long shorts. So many pockets for so many insulin pumps, blood testers and glucose tablets.

I like that fashion allows me to express who I am. I also dislike that it is a relationship of being 'allowed', because that all too easily becomes a relationship where I am being defined by something other than myself. Dress must not define us, we define us. So my fellow PWDs wear what you like. Be proud of your scars. Embrace your pump, it's helping to keep us alive. And remember there is nothing cooler or more sexy than someone whose trying to be comfortable in their own skin.

4and8 blogs about Type One Diabetes and the continual plight to achieve sugar levels between 4 and 8