Star of the costume drama

HERE it comes again, loping through the stalls and into the crush bar,

a rhapsody of dishevelled linen, brushing shoulders with the world.

Behold the Festival Suit. Of course, if these monsoon conditions persist

Edinburgh could well be the ruination of the Festival Suit this year,

forcing its crumpled flowering undercover as performers, critics,

impressarios and audience reach for the plebian refuge of a nylon

showerproof and some gash company umbrella.

But let us look to a bright future. Less than a week away from

Edinburgh's ritual lunge into culture the city's ritualistic pin stripes

and Laura Ashley timidity of dress are in retreat, shunted into

unfashionable sidings as the march of cafe society clobber overtakes the

good-time crowd. Arty folks have always dressed with more visual panache

than bankers, but what is interesting now is that bankers themselves are

saucing their sartorial rectitude with something dashing in the

buttonhole or at the neck.

Might we put this down to the trend for banks to resemble hotel

foyers? Along with the ornamental shrubbery and decorative water colours

of corporate art, we now have the manager dressed with the same

delicate, embellishments (silk handkerchief, customised cufflinks,

sincere, designer tie), as the hotshot running the Ritz. Equally, with

the emergence of senior women financiers banking institutions have now

become home to the ornamental waistcoat.

On several levels, though, festival people are often fascinating

exponents of costume. In fact, you can probably chart the growth of

prancing narcissism in Britain by glancing through the festival's

picture archives. During the early years in the late forties and

fifties, a sports jacket, flannels and brown shoes composed the only

casual ensemble available to men whose style was trapped between Bertie

Wooster and clothing coupon frugality. Heavily tweeded, as if down from

the moors, the Edinburgher with artistic leanings sweltered through

performances in the Usher and Assembly halls, never once discarding his

jacket. Decorum was the ostensible reason but the true explanation was

that he simply couldn't take the risk because of his pockets. To this

day men believe pockets bestow superiority, allowing them that

irritating key-jangling opportunity to pretend at being in control.

But in loosening up the rules for entertainment attire men and women

have curiously swapped one uniform for another. The Festival Suit,

accompanied either by toe-capped plimsolls or the worldly sandals of New

Age consumer Buddhists, is almost interchangeable between the sexes, its

colour a tonal medley of bleached ochres and cafe-au-lait, its

unstructured shape just creased enough to make the wearer seem laconic.

Such is the general look of the festival glee club but there are times

when women especially wish to sieze the chance of First Nights for a

glorious show of dressing up. The problem here is that evening wear

requires some apprenticeship and for most women life is just too

pressurised to devote extra time and money in that direction. So, the

trick is to opt for the kind of daytime style that makes you feel at

your best, then seek its night-time equivalent -- jackets, either loose

or contoured, but now in shot silks interestingly frogged on the bodice

or sequined on the collar or cuff; pants still fluid, but diaphanous and

ending on the ankle so that high heels don't catch in hems and send you

hurtling to a sorry finale; sarongs, elegant, comfortable, in jewel

colours or tropical patterns, again in silks gentle as a South Seas

island breeze.

Essentially this is easy-going gear made formal by special materials,

and its beauty is that it can serve a woman from one festival

performance to another, from ovation to catcalls and never appear

treadmill or loaded with the gawdy cheapness of some old end-of-pier

coquette. The strategy for most ensembles should be an outfit that

includes just enough fashion to look distinctive but not so of the

moment that it disappears up its own swankiness before the festing weeks

are done.

As for the guests of the sponsor, this is often where triumphant

opulence resides. If destiny beckons you to the kind of festival party

which demands high drama, then you take on the very stage itself and it

may be that only haute couture will do. But we're moving in a different

circle here, for these are women with sufficient time to consider every

aspect of their appearance. The trophy wives with leisure enough to

debate their choice of ear rings, remove their day faces and apply

nocturnal make-up, and stand, trance-like, before a mirror, studying the

pitfalls of an unruly cleavage.