Junkee’s 3rd Annual Burner Fashion Show Part 1.2
As promised my fellow future dust dwellers, we present the rest of last week’s Burner Fashion Show! Hope you enjoyed the teaser featuring the Melting Pot’s flashiest finery. Now onto Prism Magic’s burning best!
Lauren Mari Hufft Gifford of Prism Magic Clothing & Imports located in Sparks Nevada on Pyramid Highway (hey … that’s the sweet scenic route to Burning Man!) put together a rainbow of colorful looks that honor your inner funk monkey.
*Take advantage of the full screen and higher resolution options (only accessible once you’ve pressed play)
**Peep the sweet intro as well. There really was lighting!
Check The Designers & The Location
Photo By Dana PhotoZen Nollsch
Reno’s Burner HQ: Melting Pot World Emporium Pt 1
As we get closer to the big week in the desert, it’s important to take stock of what resources we have at our disposal on our way out to the Playa. As the Jack Rabbit Speaks (JRS) mentioned yesterday: The Melting Pot World Emporium is one of the best resources available to burners passing through Reno. As the video shows, their fashions are fantastic and they also stock most all the fun stuff you can buy & bring to BRC.
Today’s video is a brief prelude to a series of video blogs about this fascinating burner owned business that will be posted here over the next couple weeks. If you visit them, don’t forget to mention “DustyCouture.Com” for 10% off your purchase.
Check back soon for videos showing the rest of the 3rd Annual Reno Midtown Burner Fashion Show.
*Note: Take advantage of the full screen options and higher resolution (only available once video starts)!
The Melting Pot models pose in their rainbow colorful, playa ready outfits.
Playa FATshion: Luscious Ladies
Last weekend a group of large and in charge fashionistas hosted a rawkus celebration of couture designed with the plump woman in mind. Sexxxy got brought by the babes with the most back to the delight of all.
The Lucsious Ladies of the Fat Girls fashion show took back control of the runway and in doing so manifested the re-envisioning of everything a sensual woman can be. These incredible feme-fatales walked the room in an array of off-the-rack and custom sewn creations, that highlighted the reality of their beauty, power, and energy.
Lauren Mari Hufft Gifford of Prism Magic and Meredith Tanzer of La Bussola brought together a tremendous stable of talent for a revolutionary show that incorporated Burlesque, Lounge Singing, Belly Dancing, and Body Painting performances in addition to epic fashion. An especially notable highlight was the most over-the-top, steamiest, sinful cupcake eating performance we can imagine!
There was a deep sense of knowing surrounding the paradigm shift our community was manifesting that night. Amidst the laughter and wild cheering we all seemed to know that this happening was bringing a much needed counter-balance to the over-sold and brutal “ideal” image of the female form that western culture is currently plagued by. With their own sexual energy and clothing our voluptuous vixens shed the omnipresent awareness of the body a woman is “supposed” to have and transcended all comparisons while giving the finger to any who would scheme to alienate them from their own bodies.
We citizens of Black Rock City are familiar with the conscious act of taking control of our image. Burning man has always been a deliciously deconstructed platform to reform how we see ourselves. Radical self expression is a common description of what we are up to out on the playa but perhaps Larry Harvey said it best in the 2000 SUMMER NEWSLETTER Burning Man Journal ” … participants commune with themselves, … regard their own reality, that essential inner portion of experience that makes them feel real, as if it were a vision. I like to say that visions aren’t defined by light which falls upon them, but that they shine forth with their own light – they radiate outward, they illumine the world, they redefine reality.”
Special thanks to our co-author for this piece Mairin Kareli, Artist and Owner of Kareli Kairos www.karelikairos.com
Mairin’s unique insights can be attributed to her background as an extremely intelligent luscious lady, visual artist, business owner, and fashion designer, as well as multiple other pursuits she is engaged in many of which she excels at beautifully.
Trash-O-Lution The Junk To Funk 2009 Follow Up
The much anticipated 2009 Junk To Funk fashion extravaganza proved that Trashion still has a myriad of new realms to explore. Elysium Events and SCRAP once again set the stage for groundbreaking styles.
New categories, challenges to returning designers, a new venue and heightened public awareness produced an evolved event with ensembles that redefined the creative constraints of conscious clothing reconstructionistas. Those who attended this fourth annual fashion design contest described the atmosphere as “electrifying”.
The most popular upcycled materials at this year’s show were coffee filters (remember, this is Portland) and bike parts (remember, this is Portland). The winner of the show was “Chastity Blinds” by Jen Lamastra, a spanish armor/alice in wonderland-esque piece made out of mini blinds, sewn with bike tire tubes all topped by a bike tire tube wig all of which is pictured to the left.
A pair of animal hoof shoes constructed from the industrial waste of a meat-packing facility also garnered significant interest. Another crowd favorite was the elegant and very burnerly Trash-Fence Gown pictured at the bottom of this post.
Jaysun Spieth & Jos Smith (The Photographers), Darcie Radke (Truth in Light Photography), and Aisha Harley (Aisha Harley Photography) did an amazing job photographing the abundant magic overflowing every square inch of the Crystal Ballroom that night. Many thanks to all of them for the spectacular slideshow which beautifully showcases this thrilling night.
While there were significant financial incentives, the real rewards were a sensational show and a mass expansion of consciousness in terms of the creative fun we can have with recycling not the thousands of dollars in prizes. The new format, twenty nine fashion designer entrants, and near capacity attendance are just a few of the factors indicating that the 5th annual Junk To Funk show will be worth planning your 2010 November around.
A Nod To Burner Style From … Victoria’s Secret?
Gorgeous women in skimpy lingerie and wings rocking playful, over the top haute couture. It could be the Playa but what we’re hinting at is this year’s annual Victoria’s Secret (VS) fashion show which just occurred.
One of the most anticipated and popular events in the default world fashion community, the annual VS fashion show has a reputation for being a sensational smorgasbord of perfect bodies in sexy undies. This year’s presentation, however, is generating even more buzz than usual due to a bevy of the buxom barbies sporting pieces clearly inspired by alternative fashion sub-cultures, most notably Steampunk.
VS continued their angels-wearing-wings theme but added a daring new twist by replacing feathers with balloons, gears, patchwork quilts, and other nontraditional items. It will be fun to see who from our community will one-up these designers with the wings they construct for this coming year’s burn.
This show reminds us how effective skimpy undergarment outfits are on the Playa. They’re also easy to pack and practically keep themselves organized. Just imagine only needing a medium sized purse for all your Playa outfits! (Well, that and a really warm fur coat.)
Plus, consider the off-playa benefits: cleaning them is a breeze, they’re great for the bedroom or the beach/pool/hot-tub, and they almost never go out of style. The bottom line is, they create a titillating opportunity for adding potent sexual energy to the atmosphere of any situation.
VS’s notable departure from their typically blase’ style campaigns of the past resulted in Playa-worthy looks that are every bit as glamorous while being immensely more fun! Whether or not this is a continuation of the BRC-inspired trendsetting announced during the Milan fashion show is unclear at this point but we’ll take this as a strong indication that the paradigm shift isn’t over yet …
If you’re interested in wings, we’ll be posting soon about a radical pair we are currently crafting. Click the subscribe links to the right and you will be notified!
UPDATE: Watched this show online (click here) 3 times yesterday with a large group and everyone LOVED it. It’s great entertainment in addition to the incredible fashions (many of which I had not seen pictures of yet). I recommend that you skip the “reality show” portions but plan on watching it more than once!
Junk to Funk, Dumpster Couture
There’s only one thing better than a bunch of Burners dressed to the nines and that’s a bunch of burners wearing designer fashions made out of garbage! Well … bacon miiiight be better, but I digress.
It’s called Trashion or “Dumpster Couture” and it’s a relatively new school of fashion design that is only just now hitting it’s stride. It has rapidly become very popular since the materials are free and it’s a stylish way to go green.
What’s really great about the trashion movement though is how it levels the playing field. No longer limited by access to the finest materials, the designer can let creativity reign transforming junk into runway worthy ensembles.
As you can see, these styles would fit perfectly on the Playa. With a little experience, a designer could learn to improvise with trash on hand, creating costumes on the fly from what little waste is produced by their neighbors in BRC.
Further, while pure trashion creations are marvelous, it’s a great idea to incorporate many useful bits of refuse into your crafting supplies. There’s a lot of odds and ends that just aren’t sold in crafting stores which can come from any number of household
items/appliances. I can’t remember how many times my costume design problems were solved by simply scanning around the garage or digging through the trash to find just the right “part” to rig something up.
If you’re looking for a wild time, trashion shows are better than a hobo circus. SF Burners included one in their pre-compression festivities for 2007. On 11/14/09 Portland will be hosting Junk To Funk, one of the most anticipated dumpster couture contests of the season!
To give you some idea of how excited people are over this mode of fashion, both the Portland Mayor and the Portland Mercury’s Fashion Editor will be presiding over the Junk To Funk festivities. We can’t wait to do a follow up showing what strolls down the runway. If you don’t want to miss out, click the Subscribe buttons to the right and we’ll notify you when it’s posted.
So the next time someone tells you they don’t dress up because they can’t afford a costume, you can provide them with an alternative that could become an additional source of income.
Alert! The Dusty Couture Craft-O-Lution Labs have just announced that they will be experimenting with the intention of creating some hard-core Burner Trashion pieces. Stay tuned for more announcements!
