It’s Girls Gone Wild for Girls (and Marketing)

Melena Ryzik will probably be getting some mail from The Brand Lady or one of her lieutenants after this NY Times piece on lesbian spring break, better known as Kraft Nabisco week. Wait, I mean, Dinah Shore weekend. Got to get my brands straight.

Welcome to Dinah Shore Weekend, or, as it’s better known, lesbian spring break, which concludes today. An annual pilgrimage for more than three decades, it has attracted thousands of adult women to this mountain-ringed Southern California desert town, which becomes a destination for lesbians looking to party, socialize and hook up.

The name comes from the Kraft Nabisco Championship (formerly the Dinah Shore Golf Championship), the first stop on the Ladies Professional Golfers Association tour, which happens concurrently a few miles away.

In the years B.E. (Before Ellen DeGeneres), the Dinah was the province of mostly polo-shirted women seeking a low-key weekend getaway. Now, in the years A.L. (After “The L Word”), it has been transformed into a fashionable bacchanal, nearly a week long, with celebrity guests like Carmen Electra and Joan Jett, large pool parties and dozens of corporate sponsors, who vie for the attention of a community that is suddenly much more visible, and visibly wealthy. It’s Girls Gone Wild for Girls (and Marketing)