Bound for Burning Man, but First the Costume

Recently, the mannequins in the window of the Manhattan vintage shop Reminiscence traded their summer outfits for Sgt.-Pepper-style military coats with tassels and epaulettes, harem pants, platform boots, headdresses, goggles, and, perhaps most mystifyingly, bulky faux fur coats. The reason was simple: Burning Man. Burning Man, an annual gathering that draws about 65,000 participants to the Nevada desert for more than a week, may be 2,750 miles away, but this time of year it is very present in New York at apartment sales, weekend bazaars, trunk shows, dance parties and at the city’s costume, vintage and army surplus stores and even its sex shops, where shoppers assemble the elaborate outfits that are all but required on the Playa, as the gathering site is called. “People used to come buy hippie stuff, and we didn’t know why,” said Joan Bedor, 61, who has worked for decades at Reminiscence, now near Union Square. “People kept coming and we began to focus on it. Now we know what to buy.” She pointed out mirror-lens goggles, embroidered Indian skirts, metallic-hued booty shorts, parasols hanging from the ceiling, and a rack of fake fur coats — a Burning Man wardrobe staple for the cold desert nights. “This is all Burn stuff,” she said. Purchased from wholesalers during the year, it was put out in July. By this week, the mannequins had already cycled through several costumes. New York’s Burners, like their Silicon Valley counterparts, are mainly white-collar professionals in their real lives. Tickets for the event, which begins on Aug. 27, range from $425 to $1,200, and that doesn’t include the cost of airfare, food and costumes...more