The Sleepwalker is the latest festival gear

Oscar Quine takes to a London park to try out the innovative onesie

Oscar Quine
Monday 20 April 2015 12:48 BST
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Festival-goers are not known for their smart sartorial choices. Frazzled by heat, sleep deprivation and nefarious substances, they have, over the years, championed the fluffy hat, the poncho, and the onesie. And now, apparently, this.

The Sleepwalker is, quite simply, a wearable sleeping bag. Zip off the detachable bottom, shove your head and arms through the holes provided, pull tight, and voila! you’re ready to hit the main stage.

With the Glastonbury line-up announced this week – and pictures flooding in of fashion’s A-list sporting their boho best at Coachella – I headed to a central London park to give the Sleepwalker a road test.

Its makers are heralding it as the must-have camping and festival accessory of 2015, a lucrative niche to fill. In 2012 – after everyone from Lily Allen and Rita Ora to One Direction was pictured wearing one – the onesie was reported to be selling at a rate of one every three seconds.

Robert Johnston, style director at GQ, put that success down to the fact it was both “cute” and “dead easy”. “There’s something quite infantile about it – and about festivals too. Subconsciously, they’re about reverting to childhood. It’s like wearing your jimmies in public – and there are no parents around to tell you not to.”

So can the Sleepwalker find the same sweet spot of comfortable and hip? To ensure accurate testing, I first need to simulate a festival experience – so I stop off at M&S for a choc ice and a tinfoil-topped glass of sauvignon blanc. Finding a sun-dappled corner in the park, I pitch my tent and unfurl my Sleepwalker. The colour is hideous but I slip it on and begin to make headway with the refreshments.

Before long, the vino has taken effect. I make a pillow from the detached base of the bag and lie back. The office seems a million miles away, but before I can drift off, I notice heads turning. A young couple do a double-take. Two boys playing football edge towards me. In a bid to inject some atmosphere to my faux-festival, I head into the park to make friends. Before long, I see a young lady tucking into her lunch who bears a striking resemblance to Amy Winehouse. Perfect!

Thankfully, she puts my mind at ease. “Wearing this? To a festival?” says 32-year-old Alicia Gomez. “Sure! It’s a party – it’s fun.” But Ms Gomez, from Barcelona, has only ever been to beach festivals. At British festivals, I explain, you invariably end up too hot, too wet, or too cold. The Sleepwalker only caters for one of these outcomes.

Jeanette Taylor, 68, has spent a lifetime vacationing on campsites in Britain’s seaside resorts. “It’s not waterproof so it probably wouldn’t be any good for a festival,” she says.

The jury is out on whether the Sleepwalker will hit the same note as the onesie. There is something quite childish in walking around wrapped in a duvet, but I feel more like Arsene Wenger than Harry Styles. If anything, the Sleepwalker is better suited for a weekend in the New Forest than rocking out to Kanye West. Especially, when the midnight call of nature comes.

The Sleepwalker is available from Halfords.

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