Mary and Missi from Leipzig.

Indeed, that is always the case: it is all about the looks at the Wave Gotik Treffen (or as friends call it WGT, Treffen or even just a Meetup). The 20th WGT, organised in a lovely city of Leipzig, Germany, on June 10-13 is full of creative outfits.

Some people spend enormous amounts of money just to look good and to show themselves off at the Treffen. They mentally start planning next year's outfit already before the current one is finished. The bands and the artists are a plus, if you happen to be into some of them, otherwise, you might not even buy a ticket to the festival. You just appear to the area prepared to be photographed. And these beautiful creatures really don't mind being adored by the camera.

Jana and Matze from Nürnberg.

Then there are the regular town folks, and the festival tourists who travel to Leipzig just to see the whole costume play live and that way be part of it. When you enter the main festival area during the weekend, it is surrounded by the "normal" people with cameras who are not about to come to the festival but they are there just to take pictures and to appreciate the beauty of the event Leipzig is so famous for.

Andy and Gregory from Bavaria.

But the main colour scheme at the Treffen is black. Not a big surprise there. Afterall, we are talking about a goth festival. Roughly estimating at least 97% of the people are wearing black. It doesn't matter whether you are wearing a band t-shirt, mini-mini-almost-non-existing skirts, huge Victorian-style dresses, or just knickers, bra and fishnets - all black. The rest 3% is a mixture of people's imagination: red, purple, green, blue and even neon colours (if you are into the cyber goth stuff).

The attached pictures are appreciating the more colourful side of the Treffen.

Pascal from Lüdenscheid and Dominique from Duisburg.

20th Wave Gotik Treffen 2011

Photographs by Katja Nykanen