It is early February on a Saturday afternoon on the West Bank of the Mississippi River in New Orleans. Mardi Gras is in full effect right now in this lively city. The streets are buzzing with excitement.
My mother asks me if I would like to go watch the Nomtoc parade with her down the street from our house. This parade is one of the largest parades on the West Bank and I believe it is also the only parade on this side of the river that has a predominantly black krewe. The “krewe” refers to the people the ride the floats in the parades. There are also predominantly black schools and dance troupes that march in the parade. This parade is much different from the parades that roll in Uptown New Orleans. The parade krewes of the Uptown parade usually consist of white upper class families. You usually are invited to participate in a krewe by a family member or friend and it costs a lot of money. Such a strange tradition. It is in a way like being invited in to a social club. But back to Nomtoc.
Being in Shreveport and for the most part trapped in the Centenary Bubble, I rarely get to see such sights as the ones I saw at this parade. I AM a New Orleans native, but being relocated in Delaware of all places, allowed me to forget how fashionably creative, exciting and a lot of the time unfortunate New Orleanians could be. Sitting on the curb with my mother I am repeatedly awed and utterly fascinated by the attire (my mother would call them “get-ups”) of the parade watchers. Before the parade even begins and in between floats, it is a full on fashion show out there. I find almost all of the people that pass by my mother and I visually stimulating. Sometimes we cannot help ourselves to exchange looks, comment, or just giggle. I truly believe that these people have in a way created art with their attire that symbolizes their culture today.
Some group of girlfriends wore matching outfits. They would be the same track suit: matching jacket and really short shorts, but they would all have different colors and their shoes would also be color coded. I saw a group of guys who were all wearing plaid shirts- a size too big and baggy jeans. There was also a group of guys that decided to play it simple and wore undershirts or “wife-beaters” and back jeans. Some females decided it would be cute to use small dogs as accessories. One woman decided to dress her small dog in a shirt similat to the one she was wearing. She wore an arguably stylish pink shirt with rhinestone embellishments while her dog was adorned in a pink shirt. I also saw quite a few all-in-one denim suits-sort of like Cat Woman but not leather, denim. Ironically the denim suits were all worn by women with voluptuous figures. They were not slim at all to be wearing such a garment. It was amazing that these people had the guts to be wearing the things that they were wearing. Let’s not forget about the hair. There were all types of hairstyles being displayed. Dread locks are very popular amongst black males in New Orleans these days. I wonder if it has anything to do with the New Orleans native rapper Lil’ Wayne sporting the locks. I think it might. Then there are the obvious hair extensions and weaves. Women today are going nuts over hair that isn’t there’s and this truly amazes me. Hair weaves are always very obvious to me but the women at the parade were very proud to display their over-sized buns, unnaturally flowing curly locks, or ponytails that reached their calves. The hair was also as colorful as the outfits.
A lot of today’s urban fashion for woman connotes a strong sense of sexuality. It is very tight and the colors are very bold. It relates to what advertisements, television, and other forms of pop culture are trying to portray women as. Women are seen as objects to be looked at and their value is seen in their beauty. The women at this parade are just walking examples of how society views women or how they think their appearance should look according to our society. I feel like with the men they were trying to use their attire to express a sense of masculinity and for most of them, heterosexuality. It is amazing how one’s appearance can reveal so much about a society and a culture. I believe that this culture holds a lot of value in their appearance. A lot of advertisements are selling products that help you modify your appearance.
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