Rotary Club Mardi Gras Ball — a platinum gala

Seventy years of costumes on parade made the Rotary Club Mardi Ball in St. Martinville a platinum gala of memories. High on the list of celebrated achievements was a parade of old photographs from the early years featuring family and costumes of St. Martinville’s own costume designer and former queen, Hope Dugas.

“They had a screen continually showing pictures from past balls,” said Vickie Lasseigne Tenney, a member of the 1972 Rotary Club Mardi Gras court and Dugas’ daughter. “So many costumes Momma made, all of us. Her sister was on the first court 70 years ago, one of the pictures featured her. We used to go to the corner bar and get the bottle caps to make brooches. We learned a lot of crafty things making costumes.”

Dugas raised five children while creating and adorning costumes for local krewes as well as others around the nation including the Washington D.C. Mardi Gras. Tenney said the costume she wore in 1972 had wings made of 2-by-4-inch boards and wire. It weighed about 50 pounds and she remembers as a 12-year-old swaying underneath the weight.

“Back then it took weeks to make the costumes,” Tenney said. “We still have the 1966 World Book Encyclopedia used to flatten the decorations while the glue dried, sometimes for days. They were gorgeous but took a long time to make.”

Tenney said she was also about 10 years old when she started helping her mother glue on sequins using a toothpick, glue and other decorations. The bottle caps they collected at the corner bar were spray painted gold, surrounded on the edge by Mardi Gras beads before a trinket of some type was attached making it look like a brooch.

Then the brooches would be glued all over the costumes.

Family Affair

Many other family members have been involved through the years and still are part of Hope Dugas’ master craftsmen. New Iberia Police Chief Lee Fournet is married to Dugas’s sister Doris who is still part of the “decorating” committee. Fournet and his son Ernie Fournet have been responsible for building many of the massive metal headpieces decorated by the family crafters.

Dugas family helpers include her daughter Stephanie Lasseigne, Claudia Dorsey and granddaughter Jessica Melancon.

Husband Huey Dugas is a past king from the 1986 Rotary Club Ball. The Dugas costume he wore is still on display in Canada at the site of a World’s Fair. The following year, 1987, Hope Dugas was Queen Mother wearing her own creation.

Early Years

Dugas said she learned a lot by working with designer Nolan Breaux. His designs, which are in the archives of her studio, still inspire, but she said working together became a joint venture. Not everything he designed was realistic to create or wear. Together they were able to come up with solutions that captured his extravagant designs but were able to be sewn and worn. Some of his older designs have been recreated through the years.

Tenney said they’ve all made so many costumes through the years, it’s hard to tell which krewe or costume they worked on. They just did the work. She pointed out that this year’s Queen Mother and her page were a combination of the old and new. Dr. Jackie D. Simon, 2016 Queen Mother, actually designed her gown to match the one her page wore, the same gown Simon wore in 1969.

Only part of the costumes in the elaborate 2016 Rotary Mardi Gras Ball were made by Dugas this year. They were for King Rotary LXX Jamie Castille and two junior maids, Georgie McBride and Georgie Harris.

Through the years the Dugas artisans have brought carnival to life through the costumes that shined forth for the platinum year of the Rotarians.