Everyone loves dressing up to party, and Edinburgh's clubs are no exception. The exhibitionist style is most definitely in.

Words: Thom Dibdin

UP BEFORE

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IT'S THE MOST KITSCH MOMENT IN clubbing history since The Village People got a spangly-topped crowd doing the YMCA dance. Except that this isn‘t Manhattan's Posing Palace in the heyday of disco. when the clubbers

were line-dancing through kilos of

Bolivian marching powder. This is downtown Edinburgh. Club Mercado. no less. A Sunday night. indeed. And the whole club has gone tank top crazy.

Trendy Wendy‘s on the wheels of steel. spinning the most tacky of

grooves. Her Little Helpers dispense sweeties and good cheer. The clubs

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packed to the gills and. on stage. the paying punters proudly display the sartorial inelegance of the month's Tackno theme the Tank Top Fashion Parade.

Kitsch? Definitely. But cool‘.’ Well. yes actually. For one evening only in October. tank tops were in demand. It was also the perfect expression of a phenomenon which has. stealthin over the last four years. become first a trend and then commonplace in Edinburgh club life. (‘all it what you will the kitsch club. the dressing up club. the theme club but in

On stage, the paying punters proudly display the sartorial inelegance of the month's Tackno theme the Tank Top Fashion Parade.

KITSGH CLUBBING

Edinburgh scarcely a weekend goes by when you cannot find a place where you are welcome to dress in the most bizarre of fashions.

This year the clubbing magazines were full of the lunatics in Ibiza.

'l‘ransvestitcs and aliens were everywhere. But that was on holiday and. back in Britain. it‘s rare to find more than one club in any city where this sort of activity is the norm for anyone other than those paid to dress up by the club itself.

Glasgow has had a couple of attempts at it. At its peak. Love

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