The first place I ever heard of an “arm party” was on Man Repeller, whose author, Leandra Medine, would pile on bracelet after watch after zip-tie after cookie cutter onto her wrist as an element of her Doesn’t Give A F%#^ sartorial style. (An “extensive look” at her arm party past is located here, for reference.)
One of many, many Man Repeller arm parties.
The world loved the arm party just as much as they loved Man Repeller. Now, granted, I haven’t spent much time delving into the philosophy or spitirual nature of the “arm party” but, from what I can tell, it seems like you can either approach it with calculated curation, individually picking bracelets and random pieces of string to create a worldly – yet edited collection of um, arm party guests(?)… or you can just pile stuff on with reckless abandon. Either way, it seems like it has pretty much the same effect.
You can even buy pre-packaged arm parties. I know. They are usually pretty inexpensive and each piece seems to run along a theme, but is different enough from the next to justify itself when standing alone, as well. Some are okay, some look like they’d turn my arms green.