Sunshine, glitter, dancing.
Rainbows, art, creativity, confetti.
Music, friends, laughter, light.

Magic and love.

All those words? They’re the best forces we have against darkness, fear, and hate.  They all came together at Coney Island this weekend. The timing was very fortunate, if you ask me, and the thousands of other people who attended Saturday’s Mermaid Parade was this Saturday. Beauty and joy poured into every corner of this beachy, boardwalk area of Brooklyn. It was amazing.

What is the Coney Island Mermaid Parade?

Technically it’s call an “art parade” but it’s certainly not a place for worrying about technicalities. It’s a place to plop down your worries like a beach towel in the sand before you run into the surf squealing with delight.

 The Mermaid Parade is the best people watching you’ll ever find in NYC. It’s an excuse to wear sequins, dress as mythical sea creatures, put shells in your hair. It’s a festival anyone can feel a part of. 

It’s the perfect way to spend a sunny Saturday in June. 

It’s an excuse to wear your flamingo hat and sunglasses. And drink beer at 1PM.

It’s a great event for kids of all ages.

And adults of all ages too.

The parade is inspiration for impressive, hand crafted nautical art.

And the perfect a place to show off your creativity.

It’s the best reason to cover your still-pasty-from-winter body with paint.

Sunscreen too! Other wise you’ll quickly turn lobster read!

It’s a magical place where the sky has more bubbles floating in it than clouds.

This was my first Mermaid Parade! I was so excited to finally make it to this event I’d only heard about. I was not disappointed.

The cliché of the Mermaid Parade is BOOBS.

Specifically that it’s an event lots of boobs on display. Sure, there were a lot of bikini tops, some body paint, and plenty of pasties. But it was certainly not Boobs on Parade. There was nothing sexual about it, boobs were just part of costumes. I’d say over all there was a boob nonchalance that is perfectly common in Europe and scandalized in America for no reason. It was pretty cool.

If you missed this year’s Mermaid Parade, I took a ton of pictures so you can get a feel of what it was like to be there. Take it a step further and really feel like you’re there, re-apply sunscreen 2 times while looking through this post!

Floats were few and far between and many of them were home made.

The majority of participants stuck with the under the sea theme.

Some took it a step further with cute themes on that theme.

Like StarFISH Wars!

And Frida Kahlo mermaids. Why not?

A real live chicken of the sea.

The people watching the parade were all in fun, happy moods. We all chanted together to get this chicken to come over to us!

Above all else, the Coney Island Mermaid Parade is full of gorgeous, colorful people.

Full of love and life.

Oh and sometimes abs!

No exactly void of politics, but politic messages were told in the most mermaid way possible.

Love and love and love and love.

As it was our first time in the midst of so many mermaids, my friends and I were pretty boring in attire. But we had such a great time and have big plans to be any thing but boring next year!

Have you ever been to an art parade? How would you dress up? If you did dress up and attend the Mermaid Parade this year or ever in the past, link you pictures, please! 

I hope your weekend was as colorful and bright as mine! And that all these pictures made this Monday and first day of summer extra brilliant!

Thanks for reading! Until we meet next post OR on Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat @newyorkcliche.