Definition

Ridgewick is a fashion aesthetic from the club scene that grew along the border of Bushwick, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens, taking its name from a portmanteau sometimes used for that neighborhood seam. The look combines grunge sourcing (thrift, visible wear, plaid, band tees) with rave function (mesh, sweat-ready layering, platform boots) in saturated color, which separates it from the all-black uniform of Berlin techno. Its anchor institutions are Nowadays, the yard-and-dance-floor venue opened on the border in 2015 by Mister Saturday Night's Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin, and Aurora Halal's Mutual Dreaming parties and Sustain-Release festival, which carried the scene's fog-heavy DIY sensibility from Brooklyn warehouse lofts to a rented summer camp in the Catskills. Key garments include skirts layered over jeans, baby tees, fishnets, leather corsets, wide-leg rave pants, chunky industrial jewelry, and platform boots.

Body Logic

The body is dressed for hours of dancing and for display at once. Mesh, cutouts, and cropped layers put skin on show while staying functional in a hot, fog-filled room, and outer layers come off and tie at the waist as the night progresses. Gender codes blur deliberately, reflecting the scene's queer club lineage, with skirts over pants and corsets over tees read as standard rather than statement. Practical needs are worn openly: earplugs on a carabiner, a bandana against fog and sweat, boots with enough platform to survive a gym floor from Saturday night into Sunday.

Exemplars

• NowadaysThe venue opened its outdoor yard at 56-06 Cooper Avenue on the Ridgewood-Bushwick border in June 2015 and added a crowdfunded indoor dance floor in the winter of 2017-18. Its posted rules shaped the scene's dress as much as its sound system did: no phones or photos on the dance floor, ask before touching anyone, free water and earplugs always. A crowd that knows it will not be photographed dresses for the room instead of the feed.
• Aurora HalalDJ, producer, and video artist whose Mutual Dreaming parties filled Brooklyn DIY spaces with fog machines and live video feeds from 2010, and whose Sustain-Release festival has gathered the scene at a rented summer camp in the Catskills every September since 2014 under the motto STRICTLY 4 THE FREAKS. Her events set the visual conditions the clothing answers to, with bodies moving in and out of dense colored fog.
• Eckhaus Latta warehouse shows2017-2018The New York label staged consecutive New York Fashion Week shows in working Bushwick warehouses, presenting mesh, deconstruction, and off-kilter knitwear on casts drawn from its own community. The shows moved the scene's dress logic onto the runway without relocating it out of the neighborhood.
• Telfar Clemens2009-2016Clemens funded his label by DJing New York clubs several nights a week and described his genderless, utilitarian designs as uniforms for the club. His shopping bag later became one of the few recognizable logos worn inside a scene that otherwise avoids brand display.

Timeline

• 2009-2012Justin Carter and Eamon Harkin launched Mister Saturday Night in January 2009. Aurora Halal threw the first Mutual Dreaming party in November 2010 at the all-ages loft Shea Stadium, then moved into Brooklyn warehouse spaces, building immersive rooms from fog machines, lighting, and live video. Bossa Nova Civic Club opened in Bushwick in December 2012, giving the scene a permanent 140-capacity techno bar.
• 2014The first Sustain-Release ran in September 2014 at Camp Lakota, a summer camp in Wurtsboro, New York, with 495 tickets. Resident Advisor described the crowd as glitzy fashion majors, chin-stroking nerds, and new age techno hippies, an early record of the scene's mixed wardrobe.
• 2015Nowadays opened its outdoor yard on Cooper Avenue in June 2015, on a former industrial lot at the Ridgewood-Bushwick line. Real-estate copy began calling the border area Ridgewick the following year.
• 2017-2018Nowadays crowdfunded and opened its indoor dance floor over the winter of 2017-18, making the scene year-round. Eckhaus Latta staged consecutive fashion week shows in Bushwick warehouses, and Sustain-Release grew to a thousand campers under pink fog at Camp Kennybrook.
• 2019-2023Basement opened under Knockdown Center in 2019 with a no-photo policy, and queer collectives like Intima threw raves at border venues like h0l0, where crowds wore fishnets, leather, platform Demonias, furry leg warmers, and industrial jewelry. The look consolidated across the neighborhood's floors.
• 2024-presentNowadays made its 24-hour Nonstop party weekly in January 2024. The same year Gothamist documented the Bushwick look as a recognized style, Beyoncé was shot in it for CR Fashion Book, and TikTok circulated tutorials, restarting familiar arguments about a scene and its imitators.

Brands

• Telfar
• Eckhaus Latta
• Luar
• Tripp NYC
• Heaven by Marc Jacobs
• Mowalola
• Chopova Lowena
• Demonia
• Dr. Martens
• Adidas (Sambas)
• Thrift (L Train Vintage, Other People's Clothes)

References

• Fondren, Precious. "Even Beyoncé Is in on the Bushwick Look. But What Exactly Is It?" Gothamist, March 31, 2024.
• Tantum, Bruce. "Mister Saturday Night: 15 Years of New York's 'By Us, For Us' Party." DJ Mag, February 12, 2024.
• Halal, Aurora. "Memories of Mutual Dreaming." Dazed, September 2, 2014.
• Saxelby, Ruth. "Sustain-Release Is the Techno Summer Camp That Electronic Music Needs." The FADER, September 16, 2015.
• Boyd, Nick. "Sustain-Release Festival 2018: Late Summer Escapism for the New York Underground." Crack Magazine, September 25, 2018.
• Bulnes, Madison. "Inside Intima, the Rave Leading Brooklyn's Nightlife Renaissance." Document Journal, October 11, 2022.
• Lhooq, Michelle. "New York Designer and DJ Telfar Makes Uniforms for the Club." Vice, February 18, 2016.
• Nowadays. Safer Space policy (official site).
• Mission Capital Advisors. "Ridgewick Market Location Overview." August 11, 2016.