The people served hopecore and parasols
Style blog: Summer of Music festival in Golden Gate Park
Substack is telling me this post is too long for email! Must be all the photos. Read it on discussioncandy.substack.com to get the whole post. The ending is the best part (◕‿◕✿)
O Lord praise be unto thee! Sunday afternoon came, and I deeply did not want to wrestle tech people in the park. But hal le lu jah! I was sent a saving grace: The angel Thundercat.
Somehow I went all month without hearing that Thundercat was headlining a free concert in Golden Gate Park called the Summer of Music, which happened Sunday on the very same meadow where the wrestling meetup was supposed to take place. Around 1 p.m., still in my apartment, I was relieved to receive a few Partiful blasts from the tech wrestlers, saying the festivities had relegated them to a marginal spot of grass near the edge of the meadow. But even that did not prepare me to stroll into the park and find it overrun by an absolute sea of people.
The pilgrims came from all over the region, and they poured onto the sprawling field, setting up camp for the day. There must’ve been thousands of them, skin glistening, jewelry glinting, white teeth sparkling under the blazing sun.
It was 2 p.m. My friends would come and meet me by 4:30 p.m. to hear Thundercat play, so in the meantime I wandered through the crowd, hopping on my toes over hundreds of groups of friends laid out on the grass, over park quilts, card games, shoes taken off, joints being passed between fingers, open bags of chips and orange peels and bottles of cold beer.
After thinking my day would take me back down into the uncanny valley of the AI scene, and now seeing this, I was overcome with hope. For the culture of hanging out, for the reputation of San Francisco. You have to fight for your right to party, I’ve been saying to everyone that will listen lately, and here were the fighters. I decided to capture the joyous aesthetic by photographing the fashion of the day, trying to pull aside not the people who looked straight off TikTok but the people who just looked true, at ease and happy. I found so many I couldn’t possibly photograph them all, and I’m honestly shit with a camera, but I think the vibe is still perceptible. The whole thing was truly an inspiration.
The Summer of Music festival lookbook
Mello from Oakland turned out with simplicity, quality construction, and a rich color palette. A royal essence.
Chris from the Haight went high-concept: The mismatched kicks, the Saigon hat, the neckerchief, cords, dragon face belt buckle, and the random buttons pinned onto the lumberjack shirt like stamps on a passport all linked up to create a kind of off-kilter Americana. Was it intentional? It felt intentional. Like Apocalypse Now! has a beer in the park.
In dresses, I love 1) volume, 2) puff sleeves, and 3) exposed clavicle. This queen gave me all three at once, in a color that reminds me of frozen lemonade on a hot summer day. Thank you, Ashley from the Sunset District, for looking like the sun, on a Sunday.
I literally cannot stop thinking about these two cuties, Josh (left) and James (right) from Daly City, who were so sweet and excited to have their photo taken for a style blog. And they said they’d just come straight from CHURCH! I’m crying. Immaculate sunshine energy from this duo for real.
I love a monochrome moment. Nina from San Francisco (by way of Australia) really did it right, adding a little extra flavor to the candy apple red motif with the different tones and textures in her shirt and shoes. On top, a bite of aqua blue from her jacket. A visual feast.
The sense of peace coming from Ian (left) from Foster City and Sean (right) from South San Francisco was palpable. These lads were at ease. Regarding their outfits, Sean’s crochet hat and cashmere cardigan were what first caught my eye, but getting Ian in the photo balanced out the soft, muted tones with some bold and very American energy: The 49ers jersey, the faded denim, the Converse. Slayed solo. Gorgeous together.
I couldn’t help but introduce myself to this girl, for obvious reasons. Her name is Sydney. My name is Cydney! Wow! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ Sydney is from Alaska, where she got these earrings from an Alaskan native artist. Sadly she couldn’t remember the name of the artist, and the service was so weak in the park that day that she couldn’t look it up.
Jose from Oakland wore an eye-catching, two-toned skirt, which was affixed to his pants beneath with oversized safety pins. His friend Holly, who was visiting from “way up north,” fluttered a red fan, a very functional accessory on the hot October day.
In fact, a ton of heat- and sun-protective accessories made appearances: fans, hats, parasols, head scarves, bandanas. As lovely as they are to behold, I have a creeping suspicion that parasols and fans will become more popular accessories as the planet warms and, in San Francisco, the characteristic fog (lovingly named Karl) begins to disappear. (I can’t think too hard about that rn or will get too depressed.) Climate change chic! Ha ha. Oh god.
I went to Seoul earlier this summer, and umbrellas as sun protection were quite popular, but most were visually pretty basic. So I am sort of excited to see how individuals and brands play with parasols and fans in the comings years, as they become functionally more necessary. Because look what happens when you don’t have one: In the background of a lot of these photos, you can see the poor souls who didn’t bring such accessories making due, with shirts and towels over their heads.
Bianca from Oakland had one of the most unique parasols I saw throughout the day, which she integrated with the larger aesthetic story she was telling.
More parasols and fans caught on camera:
In the end, I found the tech people.
When I went to meet up with my friends, I walked across to the far side of the meadow, beyond the port-a-potties and bike racks, through the trees where couples lay snuggling under the shade, and I finally found them. 31 people had RSVP’d yes on the Partiful, another 28 said maybe, but only four people showed up. They’d set up a perimeter of orange soccer cones to keep their distance from the rest of the festivities. I couldn’t bear to walk over. I’m not sure why.
For the first five minutes I spent watching them, they were just standing there within their bubble, in a little circle, kicking their feet nervously and not touching. But then finally, they strapped on knee pads, and they wrested. Gently. Grabbing, clutching each other, rolling around. Pushing and pulling on, to borrow their language, another human. I smiled. It was sweet.
I took one sneaky pic.
cydney, what you said about us made my day 😭 your writing is so sweet! thank you for taking the time to take a pic of us, josh and i were definitely excited 😆
- james
The fashion show recap with some of the attendees was so wholesome omg. Loved this. I need to get myself a cute umbrella for the sun… not that I’ll need it any time soon with the way it’s freezing where I’m at 😭 but still.