The parade was an amazing splash of colour and homo-energy however I miss the artistry of the costumiers of past such as Ron Muncaster, Pip Playford and Brenton Heath-Kerr. They delivered engineering marvels that made you wonder how they managed to manoeuvre the elaborate costumes all the way to the after party. These creations often took a year in planning, months of work and hundreds of dollars in materials and were usually self funded out of the artist’s love of creating a show stopper.
To me, the current Parade is less about entries from individual artists and more about the group spectacle. On mass matching outfits and lots of flesh are the current show stoppers. The likes of Ethel Yarwood Enterprises and the team from the Mardi Gras Workshop sure foster a generation of new artists full of creativity – they take the ordinary and make it dazzling.
Pulling together an entry is a costly exercise. It’s not like 15 years ago where you could grab a truck and stick a bunch of near naked horny poofs and lessos on the back and enjoy your night. There is now insurance, equipment hire and driver fees to consider before you even think about how many hot bodies you can cover with 1 metre of pink sequence material.
This is where the increasing number of corporate floats pays off. They have the cash to splash as part of their marketing budget. The ANZ disco ball team was brilliant and I so wanted to board the Virgin bus for a touch of one-on-one in-flight safety instruction.
The glitter has washed from the parade route. I have recovered from my crazy jog up Oxford street carrying camera equipment... yes, the tragedy of trying to be in two placed at once meant the guidetogay.com team had to chase the parade to head off the lead float! We were just having too much fun in the party atmosphere of the maze-like marshalling area.
Now I have had time to ask that all important questions:
“What am I going to wear to the Mardi Gras Party?”
There has been much debate about the separation of parade and party, but the big dilemma it provides for me is I don’t have a theme to dress for.
If the party has become another plain ‘circuit’ event, what do we girls wear? I know you guys have the jeans and shirts off combo to fall back on... the leather tribe have their erotic carnal coating... twinks slide into tiny lycra and sneakers... the asymmetrical haired young lesbians have their ruby-rose-esque leggings/singlets/vest combo...
So, do I continue the History of the World story or just come all gay’ed up?
