Stratospherically expensive Wellingtons, hair straighteners and celebrity chefs: it could only be the British festival season. As the annual smorgasbord of al fresco musical events hits its sun baked stride, it’s being analysed, accessorised and commercialised like never before.

You can shell out for capsule collections based on celebrity festival looks, splurge on this year’s welly of choice – a line I never imagined it would be possible to write – a £250 Hunter Jimmy Choo with faux croc design, and dress your kids in special festival fashions, apparently the summer’s most surprising retail trend.

Glamping – buzzwords rarely become so depressing so quickly – is already part of the landscape with 'fairies' pitching tents in secured fields with exclusive use showers and loos.

But in 2009 camping apartheid has deepened with on-site pamper parlours offering hair dryers and straighteners ‘for those of you that don’t like to live without life’s little luxuries.’

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Of course, it’s a good thing that festivals are no longer purely for the hair-shirt purist. Soggy canvas, nettles and warm lager were never in a contract, and only bitter old-timers could regret communal music reaching a wider audience.

It’s just rarely has something opened up to such a narrow, and dare I say, often moneyed demographic.

As the ultimate confirmation, step forward the celebrity chef. Harvest at Jimmy’s in Suffolk has KT Tunstall, Athlete and Jamie Oliver, Camp Bestival has Florence and the Machine, PJ Harvey and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall. ‘It’s my version of doing a live gig,’ says the tangled one, whose family are staying in a yurt.

If it’s all getting just a wee bit too much, why not head south and taste a very different kind of musical festival.

In France they’ve stuck close to their roots and strong coffee, decent food and passion for the music as much as fashion are de rigeur. The Gallic summer is littered with jazz festivals of all shapes and sizes, a legacy of the black musicians who came over to fight in two world wars.

Now don’t scoff. Jazz might be a bit niche in the UK, but over the channel they’ve been an all-embracing staple of the French calendar for half a century. You don’t need to wear a black polo neck, smoke a Gauloise Brune or listen to Jazz FM. You certainly don’t need painted wellies.

Yesterday I was at Jazz à Juan where bands play under the pines of the famous Pinède Gould – the self-proclaimed La Scala of jazz – against a backcloth of the Bay of Antibes. As the oldest jazz festival in Europe, it claims to be ‘beyond division and trend’, and tent fairies.

This year’s event honours Sidney Bechet, the American legend who was married, lived and composed locally. He might have died 50 years ago, but five of his original musicians were still on stage; silver haired, of course, yet quite brilliant.

When they conjured up Summertime, the notes soaring off towards Corsica on the dusk air, chasing feathery, salmon coloured clouds, its was simply spine tingling.

And, like many French cultural events, the jazz festivals often attract generous regional government funding, generating a host of free satellite concerts in streets, cafes and hotels – and that spawns local as well as outside interest.

I watched jazz fusion – treat with caution – in the packed Le Crystal bar, was serenaded by a lone saxophonist as I swam in the bay, and at sunset, listened to Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone numbers floating up from my hotel terrace. Four hours later and the final free gig was starting up at 11.30pm.

You’ve still eight days to go at Juan with stacks of younger, rising stars on the bill. Give the town’s historic place in the ‘roaring twenties’ it’s fitting that the event is the grand dame – the ‘Glasto’ if you will - of French jazz festivals.

But there are any other number in towns and villages across France, well within range of your gîte or caravan.

Look out for Souillac en Jazz later in July, or Festival de Jazz en Touraine in the Loire in September. You never know, they might just re-polish some of that tarnished festival faith.

Ian Belcher travelled with Rail Europe (0844 8484070, www.raileurope.co.uk) which offers returns to Nice from £109.

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