Well, hello friends! Ooooh boy, it has been awhile hasn’t it? I could give you some fancy excuses as to why exactly it’s been so long, but I’ll keep it simple: I was busy and things have been weird. Neither of these circumstances have changed, but the Mermaid Parade is my favorite day of the year, so I’d be remiss not to post about it.
For those of you that are uninformed, the Mermaid Parade combines all of my favorite things: Mermaids, making stuff, and large amounts of attention from people I will probably never meet. (In truth, it is a giant bohemian art parade that happens every year in Coney Island, Brooklyn and anyone can join in the fun.)
This year was particularly tough because I traveled from Boston to NY for the parade, got tattooed in Brooklyn the day after, went back to work in Boston for 3 days and then immediately went to a wedding in Indiana. The summer has been long, drunk and sleepless.
Annnnnyway, the Mermaid King and Queen this year were Neil Gaiman and Amanda Palmer. I’m a big fan of Gaiman and my favorite of his books is Good Omens (co-authored by Terry Pratchett) in which and angel and a demon try to thwart the apocalypse. The concept of my costume is basically a half demon/half angel but also a mermaid…thing. In general, I don’t care that much about being super true to a theme but it always gives me a place to start.
First, I started with the headdress. I bought a bunch of super long lollypop sticks and painted them. Then I used an old metal headband and attached a plastic grid to reinforce it a bit. After that, I sewed/hot glued the sticks to the headband and attached shells, embellishments and floral pieces.
I tried to reinforce the headdress the best I could and it turned out okay. In general, the lollypop sticks were very heavy so they did flop around a lot. I definitely wouldn’t use them next time but they got the job done.
After that I moved onto the bra. I sewed/hot glued a bunch more floral pieces, shells and embellishments to a cheap bra for the top. Easy-peasy, but it took some time to paint a lot of the floral pieces and shells.
For the tail I bought a pair of white leggings and a pair of black leggings which I chopped in half and sewed together. For the ‘fins’ on the bottom I used organza that I gathered and sewed onto the bottom of the skirt. To finish it off, I sewed on the black and white pearls and a few more embellishments.
The tail was probably the easiest part of the costume, which surprised me because I suck at sewing. It did give me a chance to bust out the sewing machine that’s been hiding in my closet for the last 1,000 years. Unfortunately, this means that under no circumstances will I be able to throw it away…like…ever.
Last but not least, the piece de resistance, the wings! Did you notice they work? OH FUCK YES YOU DID. This definitely took my costume to NEXT LEVEL status. (Did I mention I was planning on taking it easy this year? HA!)
I didn’t actually make the wings myself but I did alter them. I got the wings from my friendly neighborhood Spirit Halloween. They work on a basic little pulley system. They have strings attached to them. When you pull them down it makes the wings flap. Super simple, but totally ingenious. I spray painted one half white, then sewed the iridescent fabric I used for the tail over that. It worked reasonably well, but the paint did crack a bit and make that wing a little more difficult to move. Overall, it got the job done and I’m really happy with the way it turned out. (Plus, everyone I ran into totally loved it!)
The parade itself went off with out a hitch. The weather was fantastic, I met lots of lovely people, saw some incredible costumes and went on a giant ferris wheel.
As always we were mobbed by photographers. I haven’t quite found all my photos yet, but here’s a great one I found on Brooklyn Vegan.
As usual, I went with my brother who’s costume, as a general rule, always includes a mustache. Good times were had by all! Onward to next year’s parade!
