PARTY
shimmering bodysuits with huge feather headdresses fanning out from the wearers’ heads and shoulders like peacock tails.
Some of the most intricate, elaborate and, sometimes, outrageous are on display at the annual Bourbon Street awards at the intersection of Bourbon and St. Ann, where prize categories include best drag and best leather.
Wear a costume
Feathered masks, funny hats and boas are available at souvenir shops in the Quarter and from vendors who wheel their goods up and down the main parade route.
Many visitors fashion their own, sometimes topical getups. Coveralls splotched with black were among the 2011 costumes lampooning BP after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
Some go for professionally made storebought or rented regalia.
“Business really starts picking up two weeks before Mardi Gras,” says Dennis Villa de leon, a costume designer at New Orleans’ Southern Costume Company, which rents and sells costumes.
“It’s hard,” he said when asked if he’s noticed any trends or themes in any given year. “Some years, the guys really want to be pirates. There seems to be a pirate contingent here in New Orleans.”
Behave yourself
Yes, it’s often touted as the world’s biggest free party and it takes place in a city famous for all-night bars and drinking in the streets. But there are limits. More than 170 state troopers are coming to supplement the nearly 1,200-member police force. And arrests are made: 334 arrests were reported last year in the 10 days leading up to Mardi Gras along the parade route and in the police district that encompasses the French Quarter.