Photo by Nicky Digital / nickydigital.com
It was a sea of booty shorts and afro wigs last weekend at Studio B’s annual Down & Derby, a
roller derby where you can whip out your disco gear. Screaming grown
people rollicked and rolled around in a circle on a postage stamp–sized
dance floor. Dress code required thighs of steel, knee-high tube socks,
fros, wristbands and all things neon. “We’re going to look ridiculous,”
a guy in a typical see-through, skintight,American Apparel get up said
to his friend as they waited in line. “This is tame,” he added.
“Everyone has on their dick riders tonight.”
It was true: Brooklynites wore their crotchhugging finest for the event’s fourth consecutive year, in no small part because it was rumored to be the final night that the Greenpoint club would be open. This time out, the party was sponsored by Colt .45 and some other bigname party promoters, and as this classic roller derby rocked and rolled in NYC, disco loving mavens in Las Vegas skated all night long in their respective city’s Down & Derby.
I asked a few of the best dressed in the crowd for their inspiration: “I’m just like the biggest disco fan ever. I tried to wear my dad’s old Saturday Night Fever costume, but he’s a really big dude, so I went out and bought this outfit instead. I got this afro and disco chain just to wear tonight,” Billy Mantagas, a 23-year-old gym teacher from P.S. 207 told me. Another girl I chatted up mentioned that the music does her in: Tunes from Rick James, Mary Jane Girls and Positive K cut in and out as the DJ worked it on vinyl.
“You have to stay till 4 a.m. or you won’t get it!” She screamed into my ear as she rolled off into the Studio B ether.
See more of Nicky Digital's Studio B photos here.
