Diane Lundeen works on her costume for Krewe du Vieux. “If you walk by and men love it, and women love it, and children want to play with it, you know you’ve done a great job.”
A costume hangs from a mannequin at the home of Diane Lundeen. A room in her shotgun house is dedicated to costume-making.
Dana Embree parades with the Box of Wine marching krewe and 'Tit Rex miniature shoe-box float parade.
Dana Embree set up a dedicated sewing/costume-making room in her Mid City home.
Dana Embree had book shelves built to separate her study room from her costume-making room.
Courtney Bullock works on a costume in a room she's dedicated to all things Mardi Gras.
Courtney Bullock paints her face in a room she has dedicated to costume making at her house in New Orleans.
Courtney Bullock uses this wall sconce near a bar area to hold some of her brushes.
Organization is vital to keep up with all the small parts required to make costumes at Courtney Bullock's home where she has dedicated an entire room to the craft.
A king's crown awaits its costume-maker in the house of Tracy Thomson in Faubourg St. John on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Spools of hyper-colored threads line the walls of costume-maker Tracy Thomson's home in Faubourg St. John on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Textured fabrics from Chinatown await transformation into a Creole Carnival costume in the house of Tracy Thomson in Faubourg St. John on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Ribbons, measuring tapes, and mannequins signal Carnival time in the house of Tracy Thomson in Faubourg St. John on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Costume-maker Tracy Thomson holds up a codpiece for a Carnival outfit she designed for her partner a few years ago in the Saint Anne Parade on Thursday, January 30, 2014. "I knew it was love when he let me dress him up in striped pants and a codpiece," said Thomson. The green-getup also made an appearance in an episode of HBO's Treme. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building. (Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Velvet, silks, brocades, wool, and "green" costume materials line the walls Tracy Thomson's home in Faubourg St. John on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building. (Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Porcine inspirations line the desk of costume-maker Tracy Thomson's desk in Faubourg St. John on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
It's wall-to-wall tutus, fabrics, and Mardi Gras costumes in Tracy Thompson's house in Faubourg St. John on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Costume-maker Tracy Thomson's cat, Zydeco, loves to sit next to the sewing machines on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
It's wall-to-wall masks and Mardi Gras costumes in Tracy Thompson's house in Faubourg St. John on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Venetian Carnival costumes stand on dress forms in the back of costume-maker Tracy Thomson's house. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Costume-maker Tracy Thomson adjusts her Venetian Carnival costumes from 12th Night on Thursday, January 30, 2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Costume-maker Tracy Thomson stands among her Carnival creations in her Faubourg St. John home on Thursday, January 30.2014. Thomson takes Carnival so seriously she's dedicated square footage in her home to the art of costume building.(Photo by Julia Kumari Drapkin, Nola.com | The Times-Picayune)
Buried deep within the yards upon yards of silks, taffetas, cottons and tulles laid out along the walls, spilling from shelves and hanging from racks in Tracy Thomson's work room is a pint-sized princess get-up, complete with a pointed hennin hat.
"I was about six when my mom made this for me," said Thomson, holding up the iridescent green dress, meticulously stitched with tiny leopard trim.
Thomson, a New Orleans artist best known for her Kabuki hats sold at Jazz Fest and the Dutch Alley Artists Co-op, has never outgrown her love of playing dress up. It's as much a passion for the 50-year-old milliner as it was for the 6-year-old princess.
To say her two-story Mid-City home has a dedicated costume-making space would be to over simplify things. The front door opens to a double parlor turned double work room, used for personal costume design and professional hat-making.
With the downstairs consumed by costuming, Thomson and her partner, Andy Roberts, live upstairs. ("I knew I loved that man when he let me put him in pink tights," she said).
In the front room, where the sofa sits in most shotgun houses, is a standing-height cutting table, a sitting-height sewing table and racks filled with plastic bins labeled brocades, linens, cottons, wools, trim and so on. Design books rest on tables and shelves. A window provides natural light. For a place overflowing with glittery, sparkly and shiny things, it's remarkably organized.
The front room is primarily for sewing, while the second room is for daydreaming up designs. A month before Mardi Gras, bolts of fabric covered nearly every surface, stacked so deep in spots it was hard to see the walls behind them.
"What I do is color stories," Thomson said. "I take all of the fabric that I've collected over the years, and I look at it to see if something is a costume in the making."
In late January, Thomson was still mulling over the various designs she'd need for this year's parading, which includes Saturday night's Krewe du Vieux (she's on the costume committee for her subkrewe, Mama Roux), the Society of St. Anne on Mardi Gras and myriad other costume-required events throughout the season.
The inventory of fabric here would make crafters and seamstresses swoon. Much of it comes from New York. "I try never to spend more than $20 a yard, and most of it is under $10 (a yard)," Thomson said.
Some pieces were ultra bargains. A king-sized leopard-print satin bed sheet, for example, she found at the Goodwill. One day, surely it will work its way into a costume.
A mannequin in the center of the second room is dressed in robes worthy of a Shakespearean stage. The costume features a brocade riding coat with covered buttons, elongated cuffs, a coordinating hoop skirt, matching mask and tricorn hat.
Thomson made the elaborate outfit for a trip to Carnevale in Venice, Italy, she took four years ago with friends. "We all purchased the same color scheme fabric (a green dragonfly print) and then we each made our own costumes," she said. "We sat in the Piazza San Marco and drew a crowd."
To make the get-up more suitcase friendly, Thomson designed the hoop skirt to collapse.
That trip to Venice was the only time Thomson, a native of a Staten Island, NY, has missed Mardi Gras in New Orleans in the 30 years she's lived here. But she has been one other Carnival outside of the Crescent City.
"The other one was in Cuba," she said, "but they move the date. They hold it in summer."
That trip was Thomson's first visit to Cuba, but she found an easy way to make friends during her stay: She held a costume-making workshop for local kids. -- Susan Langenhennig
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Courtney Bullock: "I feel like my soul was born here, and it took my body a while to catch up."
Courtney Bullock considers nearly every room in her lovingly renovated Riverbend home a dream room -- the master bath is her "dream bathroom"; the upstairs closet is her "dream walk-in"-- but one area shines above the rest.
"This is the costume mecca," she said, walking into a wonderland of make believe. Located off the kitchen and leading out to the back yard, the subdued multicolor of the tile floor and white cabinetry provide a perfect canvas for the explosion of tone and texture in Bullock's fantastical creations.
Counter-height workspace lines half the perimeter, with a sewing station at one end -- the self-threading sewing machine, a bequest from her late mother, a designer, is one of her favorite things about the room -- and oodles of crafting supplies at the other. Jars of different beads and glitter await employment, and a trio of glass wall sconces holds dozens of paint brushes. In the middle of the room sits a large round table covered in pretty floral oilcloth, to protect the furniture from hot glue and other costuming residue.
Her walk-in costume closet is a treasure trove of garments, accessories and make-up. Tutus hang on a single looped belt in one corner, with a cascade of wigs in another. Umbrellas decorated for different occasions, such as Uncle Lionel's jazz funeral or the 610 Stompers' summertime ball, hang from one side of the doorway.
A hand-painted chest of drawers bears the names of all its contents: "Headbands," "Masks," "Bras and Bustiers." A vanity and mirror crowned with dressing-room lights is her make-up station, and it's covered with different face paints and glitters.
"This room is really a hodgepodge, but it all came together," Bullock said. "I can really create something fantastic without leaving this room. It seems to always be able to provide whatever I need, whenever I need it."
Bullock grew up in Los Angeles. Her father, a television writer for "The Flinstones" and "The Andy Griffith Show," among others, was "so funny, so kind, so generous," Bullock remembered. Her mother was always sewing and crafting, and the two parents raised their daughter to "think outside the box," Bullock said. "I grew up costuming . . . and it wasn't, 'Here's a princess costume; do you want to be a princess?' It was, 'What do you want to be?'"
After learning to papier-mâché in San Francisco, Bullock first moved to New Orleans in the early 1990s to work as a float builder for Studio 3. She instantly felt a rapport with the city's creative spirit, joining the gone-but-not-forgotten Mystic Herd of Nutria. Bullock later returned to California but, after the death of her parents, returned to New Orleans in 2008 and has been laying down strong roots ever since.
She is now a member of Krewe du Vieux and serves on the costume committee for her subkrewe, Mishigas. In addition to designing fascinators for some of the marchers, she helped lead costume kit-making sessions to provide members with everything they need to look right on the big night. Bullock also is a member of a new marching group, the Dames de Perlage, and has been busily working on her Mardi Gras Indian-inspired costume.
This time of year, Bullock works on her costumes "every possibly moment when I'm home," she said. "I feel like my soul was born here, and it took my body a while to catch up." -- Molly Reid
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Diane Lundeen: "If you walk by and men love it, and women love it, and children want to play with it, you know you've done a great job."
When she recently moved into an Uptown camelback, Diane Lundeen didn't dilly-dally over where to put the couch or ponder the merits of positioning one rug here or another there. She started, first thing, by selecting the spot for her costume workshop.
The space had to be big enough: The room she chose, the third in the sidehall-style shotgun, is about 15 feet by 17 feet.
It needed a window for natural light, and it had to be central to the house. "Lots of people come over to sew," she said of those who share her passion. They include members of her Krewe du Vieux subkrewe, Mishigas (craziness, in Yiddish), for which she is co-captain and chief costumer.
Lundeen, by day a state worker's compensation judge and owner of chic pet boutique Petcetera on Magazine Street creates whimsical, remarkably detailed Carnival costumes. They take from 40 up to 120 hours to make.
"The gauge of a good costume," she said, "is if you walk by and men love it, and women love it, and children want to play with it. You know you've done a great job."
The key to success in setting up a costume work room, she says, is organization. "If you don't know where the thread is or the rulers are, you can't get anything accomplished -- or it takes 10 times longer, and you get cranky.
"And making customs should be joyful!"
So in Lundeen's costume room, she's repurposed the conference room table from her former law office to hold large spools of thread in a Crayola-box full of colors and several sewing machines -- she has four, each with a different function -- along with scissors and other supplies neatly grouped in bins. A wooden storage chest doubles as a coffee table, and it's often called upon for triple duty: It's also just the right height to stand on for hemming.
There's a TV over the mantle, for watching while she works. And in another nod to the social nature of her creative outlet, which Lundeen likens to the quilting bees of old, a built-in corner cabinet holds a bar. Champagne bottles, lying prone like Carnival revelers after a night that's little too wild, are stacked high. Many are gifts from those she helps with their sewing.
Passing on knowledge is as much a part of her aesthetic as her use of multiple textures and light.
Her costuming mentor, the late Daniel Breaux, told her, "You don't keep it for yourself. You pass it on as part of Louisiana's traditional heritage. It will die if you don't pass it on."
Breaux taught her how to work with wire framing to accommodate the physics of a costume. Now, she said, she's moving out of a wire and papier mache phase and into a textile phase, experimenting with textures.
Her costume for Krewe du Vieux (Mishigas' theme, which combines Jewish heritage with current events: "Let My People Go Cup") depicts the Red Sea by mixing a sequined red leotard with a swirling skirt of red netting, red tulle and shiny silver ribbon, to add light. Dangling ruched netting pieces with red glitter create the waves.
She'll teach the ruching technique to those fellow float-riders who are interested, she said, but some may not choose to go into such detail.
The outfit will be worn with a silver bra and red petticoats.
She likes to make costumes in pieces, which can be reused. "I have a bra bin. I have a mantle bin. I have a tutu bin," she said, as if these were common household things.
There are also prop boxes: "You need a battle ax? I have it. A lollipop? I have it." -- Karen Taylor Gist
*****
Dana Embree: "Like Scarlett O'Hara, I've made a dress out of curtains."
For last year's Not So Super Superheroes party, a gathering of alter egos held the Friday before Mardi Gras, Dana Embree went as Blunder Woman, a hard-knocks version of Wonder Woman.
"I can't say it was sexy," she said, "but it was definitely amusing."
The get-up now hangs, with dozens of others, on racks in her spacious costume-making studio. The room has pride of place in Embree's Mid City home, stretching across the front of the house.
The century-old home started life as a shotgun, but was renovated into a box double before Embree bought it. In the early 1990s, she opened it up more, reconfiguring the layout to make it into a single-family home and turning the former front room into a perfect costume-making space.
The entrance to the room is framed by a wall of bookshelves built by a friend. The same friend built the custom sewing table out of an old door, shrinking the table's height to accommodate Embree's 5 foot "and a bit" frame. The table is on wheels, so she can move it around.
A vintage notions cabinet holds threads and patterns. An early 1960s Bernina sewing machine found on eBay is the room's workhorse ("I can't believe how much it cost to ship it here," she said.)
"The big thing for me is to try not to let the space get too cluttered," Embree said. "I try to weed out costumes every year; otherwise I look like a hoarder. I do clothing swaps. This year, I had a wig swap. We had 20 people in here looking at wigs."
During the build-up to the Carnival season, friends often come over, cradling fabric, glitter and hot-glue guns for pot luck-costume making-wine parties.
"The first rule of costuming," Embree said, "is it has to be fabulous. The second is it has to be cost effective. The third is, can you pee? And the fourth, can you dance?"
Costuming is both a professional and personal passion for Embree, who parades with the Box of Wine marching krewe before Bacchus and with 'tit Rex, the pint-sized shoebox float parade. She's a costume designer/costumer in the film industry.
A native of Oklahoma, Embree moved to New Orleans in 1979. "I arrived on the back of a VW van," she said "I had a trunk and my sewing machine, like all good hippies."
Her love of costuming, though, started long before she moved to the land of Mardi Gras. "A normal day of play for me as a kid was in the yard, dressed in my dad's T-shirt and a tutu. I just never stopped dressing that way." -- Susan Langenhennig
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