For most people in Louisiana, Mardi Gras is one day a year when anything goes — no responsibilities, no limits and sometimes no shirts.
For Loretta Shelton, Mardi Gras is a full-time job.
“My Mardi Gras season starts the last of April, and it runs through the night of the ball, which is normally in February,” Shelton said. “That’s how long it takes.”
At 82, Shelton has been making dresses for Mardi Gras balls for almost 40 years, working with krewes in and around Baton Rouge, including Romany and Apollo. Much of the signature flash and feathers of Carnival season start from scratch and come straight from Shelton’s well-practiced hands.
Shelton doesn’t do anything by halves. She purchases her fabric and embellishments by the bolt. She customizes every garment she makes specifically for the person who will wear it. She punctuates every other sentence with “really and truly,” because she wants you to know that she really, truly feels that way.
In the back of her house in Greenwell Springs sits a room she calls “the hole,” a small sewing room brimming with decades of history — dress patterns and measurements pinned to the curtains, a cabinet stuffed with photographs and folders of sketches dating back to the 1970s, a closet packed floor-to-ceiling with bolts of sequin trim and rhinestone appliqués in every color imaginable. And on the corner of her desk: a single, modest sewing machine.
A completely self-taught seamstress, Shelton got her start making clothes for her children as her grandmother did for her. She soon discovered a love for jeweling and embellishment, and her interest in making costumes for Mardi Gras balls sparked.
When Shelton first came into the Mardi Gras business in 1975, seamstresses placed bids of their requested pay to a krewe to determine who would get the job. Shelton bid $48 on a ball in Plaquemine and soon found herself neck-deep in ruffled petticoats and hoop skirts, making a half-dozen dresses for an antebellum-themed ball that was a bit more than she bargained for.
“Forty-eight dollars. They thought I was crazy,” Shelton said. “After I saw what I had to make, I thought I was crazy, too.”
Antebellum gowns were only the beginning of a long line of outlandish, elaborate costumes Shelton has custom-made over the years. Some of the dozens of folders in her overflowing cabinet hold photographs of her most difficult projects, full of lush features and rich beading.
“This was a Vienna Sausages box,” Shelton said, pointing to a detailed scale model of a steamboat in the center of a river scene on a king’s train. Beneath that one is a photograph of a half-bride, half-groom costume, complete with a full train and veil on one side and a top hat and cane on the other.
Shelton’s process each year begins with receiving sketches from a ball captain, who has chosen a theme and commissioned a designer to put her ideas on paper. For weeks, Shelton studies the sketches, learning the lines of the dresses and figuring out how best to translate them into reality.
From there, Shelton meets with the court for whom she’ll be making costumes to take their measurements and determine if the sketch will work for them or if she needs to make her own adjustments to the design. Once she has put together a strategy, the next step is shopping trips to Houston, Biloxi and New Orleans for fabrics and embellishments, and then the fittings and construction can begin.
“When I get involved in it and I see the material, my mind just expands. I just go crazy,” Shelton said. “And if I don’t, I leave it alone for three days, and then I come back and I go crazy.”
Though Shelton spends months working on the costumes, she rarely gets the chance to bask in the spotlight. When her creations make their grand debut on the night of the ball, Shelton is backstage with an arsenal of pins, straightening backpieces and making last-minute adjustments. Adding to the fun and tradition of Mardi Gras is enough reward for her, Shelton said.
“When people start coming up and telling you how much they enjoyed it, you know you’ve done a good job. It makes you feel good,” Shelton said. “I just love the camaraderie that comes with all of this and the people having a good time after they see your costumes. It’s a big party.”
But years of detail work and stitching have taken their toll on Shelton’s hands, and in recent years, she has had trouble making as many costumes as usual. She plans to pass off the construction of maids’ costumes and later add extra decorations, but she wants to continue making king, queen and ball captain costumes for as long as she can.
“I’ve got queens a few years away begging me, ‘Please, Mrs. Loretta, you gotta make my dress,’” Shelton said. “And I just tell them, ‘Girl, you better get on your knees and pray.’”
Though her skill with her hands has become more of a challenge over the years, her sharp wit and sense of humor certainly haven’t faded. It’s clear why she and Mardi Gras go so well together.
“At the end of the little thing you’re writing about,” Shelton said, “it should say, ‘If she ever stops laughing, come looking for her.’”
