'Jandal scandal' at Antipodes festival

Visitors to a London celebration of all things Antipodean have been banned from wearing jandals, and forced to follow the fashion dictates of the nation that gave us the knotted hanky.

Organisers of this weekend's Toast Australia and New Zealand festival at London's Regent's Park have banned the rubber icons, despite the fact the mercury has nudged 30C in recent days.

One reveller contacted the Weekend Herald yesterday to raise awareness of the impending "jandal scandal".

A quick check of the Toast website confirmed the dress code at the festival will be "smart casual: no board shorts or ripped jeans. Dress flip-flops only."

Toast is the largest Australasian food festival in the Northern Hemisphere. It includes wine tastings, and performances by entertainers such as Dave Dobbyn, Hayley Westenra and Paul Kelly.

Organisers have this year decided to go a bit upmarket, after the 2005 event descended into a bacchanal.

"Last year's Toast was a drunken disaster," the reveller who contacted the Weekend Herald said.

"They only sold wine by the bottle, things got more than messy and [New Zealand band] Goldenhorse, who were playing, refused to go on stage ... because the crowd was out of control."

The Australian Toast, which was held on the Sunday, was almost called off after the New Zealand excesses of the previous day, she said.

The move to ban jandals and board shorts has baffled Herald fashion editor Fiona Hawtin, who described jandals as being "very Ibiza" of late.

Though she admitted to being no fan of the rubber jandals with canvas or material toe straps, all-rubber jandals worn well could "look fabulous, and are very acceptable now".

It was not uncommon to see young women out on the town "all glammed up, but wearing their flip-flops", she said.

Clothing label Workshop's national retail manager Chris Snell reckons defining exactly what constitutes a board short could be problematic.

"The whole category of what is a board short and what isn't ... I guess they must have very knowledgeable security guards."

The ban seemed out of keeping with a New Zealand-focused event, he said.

"I would have thought that, at a function like that, where you were celebrating New Zealand- or Australian-ness, that you would allow the full spectrum of New Zealand- and Australian-ness.

Antipodean antipathy is understood to be building over the ban, with many New Zealanders planning to wear their jandals and board shorts in open defiance.