So says a store called “Screaming Mimis” in New York, where Wall Street Executives have been slapping down their Black Amexes for $1500 purchases of kilts, goggles, head-dresses and vintage-looking clothing. From Paper Magazine:
As is so often the case when festivals become popular, the original stash of artistic, perma-shrooming, ambiguously-employed “Burners” who flocked to the Nevada desert every August for the last decade or two has become cut with more and more corporate honchos looking for an excuse to become “unplugged” for a week. And, apparently, many of these 1%-ers are hitting up New York’s legendary Screaming Mimis vintage store for their costuming needs, spending the equivalent of four round-trip tickets to Reno, Nevada for furry headdresses, steampunk goggles and leather gear. Basically,Mystery-chic.
“It used to be arty types [coming in the store],” Screaming Mimis owner Laura Wills says. “Now it’s everyone from financial consultants and Wall Street types to PR firm directors.”
Wills says she and her team first started noticing people coming into the store in search of Burning Man outfits five years ago and, since then, she and her buyers will specifically search for Burner-appropriate looks during their buying trips. “It’s become an amazing phenomenon. It’s totally word-of-mouth. Somebody posted on Foursquare that ‘Burners’ should shop at Screaming Mimis and after we tweeted a ‘thank you,’ it just spread like wildfire,” Wills says.
The store’s staff research Burning Man’s theme up to a year in advance (this year’s theme is “Cargo Cult“) to better plan their merchandising and monitor announcements and news from the festival. “Feathers were banned from 2008-2012 because they were called M.O.O.P. — ‘Matter Out Of Place’ — but this year they lifted the feather ban,” Wills says. “So feathers — and leather — are definitely a theme. But we won’t sell them cheap-o [pieces] because they have to be well-constructed so the feathers don’t fly all over the playa.”
And her customers appreciate the store’s efforts to find quality, often one-of-a-kind pieces — and are more than happy to use their Black AmEx cards to spend as much on a Burning Man outfit as they might on a Tom Ford blazer or Céline dress.
“We had somebody yesterday spend $1500,” Wills says. “Another — a video director — spent $1000 and is planning to parachute into Burning Man.”
One CEO who’s giving a TED talk at the festival stopped in to buy a kilt, top hot and goggles to wear during his presentation. Another customer had his pseduo-personal assistant call the store to “vet them” for their inventory and whether they could give him personal assistance. Perhaps not surprisingly, a chauffeured car idled outside while he came in to scope out the headdresses and leather vests. “He was actually a really wonderful guy and was so excited and into it,” Wills remembers.
The best thing Will says she’s noticed is that her Burning Man customers — whether art students or hedge funders — are “the most fun people.”
“A completely conservative guy came in wearing chinos and an oxford shirt and bought a headdress, goggles and an astronaut jumpsuit and helmet we had. But when we were ringing everything up, he said, ‘One second,’ and ran over and grabbed a bright electric blue tutu,” Wills says. “he plunked it down and said, ‘Yeah, I’ll probably just end up wearing this the whole time.'”
According to the official festival website and packing checklist, it’s true — feathers are the number one item listed on things you’re not allowed to bring:
Read more, including outraged tweets from Burners: http://www.businessinsider.com/feathers-not-allowed-at-burning-man-2013-9#ixzz2enXSn3AP
Waste from the 2013 Reading Festival in the UK (Daily Mail)
This is what every other festival has to deal with (Daily Mail)
Volume 17, Issue #30 of the JRS, dated July 20, 2013, carried the following item:
FEATHERS ARE BAD BAD BAD, RIGHT? WELL … MAYBE NOT.
Back in the day, folks would show up at Burning Man with cheap feather boas, and they’d inevitably fall to pieces and blow all over the playa, get stuck on the trash fence, and generally be a super MOOPy pain in the butt for everybody.
So we’ve kept a warning in the Survival Guide for years to not bring feathers (primarily this was directed at cheap boas, as this predated the headdress and fedora fads), and even had the Gate confiscate feathers and boas and whatnot from people as they enter, to prevent a MOOPocalypse.
But here’s the thing … some feathers are super MOOPy and others, well, aren’t. So use your head. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING SURE YOUR STUFF DOESN’T BECOME MOOP.
Whether it’s a costume, or a vehicle, or an art installation, your food, your camp, your bike, your trinkets, whatever, YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR MAKING SURE YOUR STUFF DOESN’T BECOME MOOP.
So be smart. Be self-reliant. Use good judgment and be careful about what you do and don’t bring (and wear) to the playa. If you want to wear feathers, OK … but make sure they’re attached in way that won’t fail, and if you can’t do that then don’t wear ‘em, because it’s on YOU if they become MOOP.
And that goes for anything you bring to Black Rock City.
