This week, some 70,000 revellers are making the trek 120 miles north of Reno, Nevada, to attend the annual festival known as Burning Man - a desert dreamscape crammed with art installations, themed camps, esoteric rituals, barely-there bikinis and more than a few celebrities.
Last August, Paris Hilton tweeted a video of herself making sand angels in the desert. “This is what happens when you’re a #PlayaVirgin entering #BurningMan for the first time,” she captioned. Hilton wasn’t the only A-lister Burning. Katy Perry, Karlie Kloss, Cara and Poppy Delevingne, Derek Blasberg and Heidi Klum all made the journey, chubby faux furs and lace-up one-pieces in tow. P Diddy also made an appearance, having broken his Playa Virginity back in 2013, when he Instagrammed a picture of himself sporting a white-and-gold captain’s outfit, paired with an oversized gold sequinned glove. “#BurningMan Words cannot explain! I’ll never be the same,” he wrote. “Do u see the glove?”
Black Rock is governed by 10 overarching Principles. Ranging from Radical Self Expression (Principle Five) to Participation (Principle Nine), the Principles are dedicated to guiding Burners towards their ultimate aim of unbridled, euphoric self-expression. Hence, perhaps, Hilton’s celestial writhings.
Founded in 1986, Burning Man was originally attended by a clutch of liberally-minded Californian freethinkers. Four years later, it moved from San Francisco to its current location, dubbed Black Rock City. Word of the water-starved paean to creativity soon spread, and it started steadily swelling in size. And, as the festival has grown, so has its appeal amongst unexpected audiences. In recent years an influx of corporate tech giants have jetted in, with the likes of Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos staying in luxury camps and souped-up winnebagos. Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors, once declared that Burning Man "is Silicon Valley.”
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The arrival of Silicon Valley was swiftly followed by the appearance of supermodels and the international style set. To the innocent observer, Hilton might seem an unlikely Burner. The notion of the heiress joining thousands of partially-clad hippies in the middle of the uninterrupted, arid desert sounds distinctly like an episode of The Simple Life. But, according to her hair stylist Christopher Mirelez, the festival holds unique sartorial appeal. “It’s a full week of the craziest cool outfits you could possibly put together with a backdrop of the naked playa in some directions, and other crazy Burning Man-goers opposite. That alone is a dope reason for attendance.”
At Burning Man, though, models face a toss-up between style and survival. Stripes of neon and feather headdresses can only offer so much protection against the blistering sun. “Admittedly, I kind of abandoned any stylish outfit I had as soon as I got there,” says British model Suki Waterhouse.
The elements are not the only extremity. Adhering to the rules of Principle Three (Decommodification), Burning Man foregoes traditional economics in favour of supernal energies, and is run on a collective, money-less bartering system. Landing at Black Rock after her wedding celebrations in Marrakesh, Poppy Delevingne soon ran out of food, and ended up trading her Burberry poncho for a burger. Australian model Andreja Pejić was fortunately better prepared, and arrived with a triad of commodities to tide her over: “I traded rosewater, love spells and sweet-and-sour Pringles.”
Burning Man differs from other festivals in that it does not pivot around a starry line-up of performers. Instead Burners wander bombastic art pieces, and haphazardly stumble across live musicians in the process. “It is not a festival in the sense of organised performance in front of an audience,” said Margherita Missoni to Interview magazine in 2010. “At Burning Man, the audience is the show, the boundaries between stage and public overlap and melt. Every form of self-expression, every fantasy... everything has a place. It’s kind of a utopia.”
Waterhouse concurs. “It’s really an opportunity to lose any kind of identity,” she tells Vogue. “You’re reduced to a sand-gremlin with nowhere to go but forward.” The opportunity of foregoing identity (albeit briefly) must be enticing for scrutiny-ridden celebrities. But, at a festival that offers a diverse range of activities, from yoga to spanking classes to naked foam parties, they inevitably encounter some strange experiences in the process. “I had my fortune read and I was told to never sleep on metal, to stay away from gutters and to never date a Gemini,” recounts Pejić. “I found the advice oddly comforting.”
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