While sipping on glittery cocktails and laughing with friends, crafting customers at DIY Disco glued feathers and tied bows to their Mardi Gras fascinators.
DIY Disco, a craft and cocktail bar, hosted a Mardi Gras-inspired fascinator making class with Chapeaux, a festive millinery company, on Thursday. Crafters had professional instruction and materials provided for them; all they had to do was run with the Mardi Gras spirit.
Jennifer Loftin and Karla Coreil, the owners of Chapeaux, create custom fascinators— formal headpieces that originate from Europe— and host parities to help others do the same. The two reached out to DIY Disco after noticing they had the same audience: women looking to enjoy themselves and get crafty.
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Loftin said they found DIY Disco in a local publication and had been looking for the right opportunity to collaborate since.
“We need more collaboration across the crafting community,” she said.
Chloe McMahon, owner of DIY Disco, said she’s always looking for new events to host to create community and form friendships. During a typical DIY Disco party, people can reserve a time to come in and choose their own crafts and drinks.
They have the option to choose from 20 crafts and are given instructions and a box of supplies for their chosen activity. Parties are typically 3 hours long, so participants can go at their own pace and chat with new people.
McMahon said these parties help bring people together, specifically women who have similar interests.
“I want to host these niche events that are particular to women,” she said.
The combination of funky drinks and even funkier crafts creates an environment where people on all ends of the creativity spectrum feel like they can be comfortable. McMahon said people of wide-ranging artistic abilities come to DIY Disco, and create things she had never thought of.
“It’s cool seeing people come in who aren’t particularly crafty,” she said. “You get to see such a wide range of people’s thoughts and creativity.”
McMahon said she loves being in the Mid City area because she can bring in students from LSU, people living downtown and older members of the community.
For Loftin and Coreil, the two values of Chapeaux are to celebrate life and create a community. Loftin said it has been exciting to bring people together from throughout Baton Rouge and elevate birthday parties or sorority events by making and wearing headpieces.
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The two have been friends for years, throwing costume parties and crafting together. After COVID-19 cooped them up, Loftin said they were thinking of ways to engage with others.
They came up with the idea of a party fascinator business at an airport in 30 minutes. Loftin said their idea was to combine the formal British tradition of fascinators with festive Louisiana traditions.
With jobs that don’t allow them to show off their creative abilities very much, Loftin said Chapeaux is the perfect thing to help her and Coreil make that a possibility.
“One day I told Karla ‘I’ve had the worst day, I just need to make a hat,’” Loftin said.
More than 30 of the two women’s hat designs went to the Kentucky Derby in 2023, and they were also featured milliners at the Louisiana Derby.
“While it’s common for women to wear fascinators at the derby, we want to create a culture where we can wear our fascinators to Trader Joe’s or the football games,” Loftin said.
For their partners, women provide all the materials such as flowers and ribbons, sourced from London, and feathers from the Garment District in New York. She said she loves seeing people create their own headpieces because no two are alike and everyone gets to show their imagination through their creation.
“We always say ‘If you don’t love it, you are not finished yet,’” Loftin said.
