Dillo Declassified: Your Guide to Camp Couture

[Intro Music: New Life] 

CHLOE PARK: As the school year winds down, we are closer and closer to one of the most popular student events at Northwestern. 

KARRAH TOATLEY: “What is it?” you might ask. 

CP: Well of course, it’s Dillo Day. 

KT: You might think you still have a lot of time, but the music festival is coming up faster than you expect. This means it’s time to start thinking about what outfit you are going to wear to Dillo. 

CP: Mayfest Productions is the student group behind organizing the festival. This year they decided to make the theme Camp Dillo, which means the day is all about s’mores, campfires, hiking and all things nature. 

[sound of fire crackling] 

DEFNE DEDA: Apart from the co-chairs of the Promotions committee, each person creates one slide of the theme they’re envisioning, and we then have a presentation day, where everyone, one-by-one, gets up and pitches their theme idea, whatever it is. They have to include stylistic choices, like as in like, “Oh, I think this is what people would wear, I think this is like the graphics that we can use, I think this would be fun because we could like prepare such, such graphics, we can have these promotional campaigns, we should have these programming ideas, these decorations on the lakefill.

KT: That was Defne Deda, one of the co-chairs of Productions in Mayfest. After Mayfest members voted on all the prospective themes, the winner came out to be ….. camp.

[drumroll] 

KT: Camp won due to the comprehensiveness of what the festival looked like including decorations and promotion, but also because the theme could be easier for students to follow compared to previous years. 

DD: We realize that for Planet Dillo, it was super fun, yes, but people had to buy a lot of things and they couldn’t really recycle what they had at home. Right? Not everyone has alien glasses at home. For Camp Dillo, you don’t necessarily have to go ahead and order a bunch of stuff from Amazon to be able to fit into that theme, you can make do with stuff you already own. You can do something with the stuff you thrift, and like it’s way easier to find stuff for. That was also another point that we were aiming for.

CP: But if you don’t know exactly what to put together from your closet, Mayfest has some ideas.  

ANOUSHKA DASGUPTA: We thought that the outfits could be super simple, but super fun. Like, making friendship bracelets with your friends, wearing super colorful tie-dye, fun snap-backs, dolphin shorts… You can just embrace the full summer outdoorsy vibes. If you wanted to dress a little bit more elevated, we talked about how you can kind of lean into kind of outdoor gear. You can wear camo, I know some people who are dressing up as lifeguards so they’re really going into the pool party idea, which I mean, I feel like summer camp, you know, you go run, swim into the lake, whatever.

KT: That was Anoushka Dasgupta, a member of the Promotions committee on Mayfest. Despite Mayfest’s initial expectations, nothing is stopping students from interpreting the theme in different ways.

DD: We just want to point out that it wasn’t our vision that this was gonna turn into a Met Gala style of camp, our intention was more like summer camp kind of thing. But again, who are we to hold people from wearing anything?

CP: Which is what makes the theme so appealing to first-year Weinberg student, Katie Chang.

KATIE CHANG: When I first heard of the theme Camp Dillo, I was pretty excited. I thought that it was really versatile and that it could go any way. A lot of people could have different interpretations of what ‘camp’ means.

KT: But the openness of the theme also led to some confusion. 

JENNA JEON: My name is Jenna, and when hearing about the camp theme for Dillo Day, I wasn’t super excited about it, just because I didn’t know how exactly the camp theme would be applied to a music festival. 

CP: Regardless of the confusion, the theme is set, so now it’s all about what people make of it.

KC: Personally, I thought it would be something with cargos and earthy tones like brown and green. I think that’s what my outfit is going to look like.

JJ: I’m thinking either parachute or cargo pants, either black or khaki in color, with a white top. I’m thinking to throw on dark green boots and pair it with a camo hat. It’s definitely bound to change, but these are my thoughts so far.

KT: Even Mayfest already has their outfit planned.

DD: People need to be able to spot us, right? So we’re all gonna be wearing crewing merch. On the day of, you’ll be able to tell, because you’d be like, ‘Oh, why are all these people wearing the same thing, huh?’ As a general information, it’s a dark green, forest green hoodie, and underneath it’s gonna be a sage green t-shirt.

CP: But if you don’t know exactly what to put together from your closer, Mayfest has some ideas for you.

DD: Moreover, we are also gonna be releasing our own merch, which we envision people can wear for the day of, or even after the day of. We’re gonna be having a lot of cool graphic tees, hoodies, bucket hats, bikinis, bandanas, caps. 

KT: If you just need some inspiration, FMO, Northwestern’s Black student alliance which is in charge of Dillo’s Second Stage has a link in their Instagram bio to a Dillo Day Pinterest board filled with outfit inspiration. 

CP: Mayfest’s Instagram page will also help to give people better ideas of what they can wear.

AD: We are planning on putting out some ‘This or That’ stories with some outfit ideas we had, and it’s like just for fun. Just to see what people like, what people don’t like. But that will also give some further insight into outfit ideas that we’re thinking of.

KT: Which is great, because I definitely still have no idea what I plan to wear. 

CP: I know exactly what I want to wear, but it’s a secret! I’m so excited to see what everyone else pulls up with. For WNUR News, I’m Chloe Park.

KT: And I’m Karrah Toatley.

[Outro Music: New Life]