From Lisa – Costume Krewe of Chewbacchus

Last weekend, I tagged along with Jp as he took a trip for grad school focused on arts and culture to New Orleans. Both he and Emma, as part of their studies at University of Chichester, were charged with finding a city they haven’t been to before and exploring its culture for a long weekend. Jp chose New Orleans, and last weekend just happened to be the first weekend of Mardi Gras.

In order to truly immerse ourselves into the culture of Mardi Gras, we decided to walk in a parade hosted by The Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus (you check out the website here).  It was originally one we thought would be fun to watch, then in researching realized we could actually walk in it if we wore costumes and paid a small fee. So, then it was time to come up with a good costume idea… one that fit into the sci-fi/horror/fantasy world of Chewbacchus. We decided on the two main characters from the BBC4 series The Mighty Boosh, whose opening lines are ”Come with us now on a journey through time and space, to the world of The Mighty Boosh”. Below are the characters – Vince Noir (left, I dressed up like him) and Harold Moon (right, Jp dressed as him). 

I was worried no one would recognize us, since the show has been off the air for a few years and its fairly obscure… and, truthfully, many did not, BUT the ones that did were super excited to see these characters represented, which made the awkwardness of people thinking we actually dressed like this normally or the people who thought we were in the Kiss army (my jacket sports a Kiss patch) totally worth it. You can see the process and the final product below.

One of the really fun things was seeing a number of costume pieces from past Touchstone shows. Really! There was the astronaut costume for the “Chiron Beta Prime” Follies bit two years ago, alien glasses Jp used in his Young Playwrights’ Festival play, and a variety of other bits and pieces strewn throughout this fantastical parade.

…Of course, there were plenty of other fun things about walking in this parade, like hanging out with about 50 Princess Leias, Peter Mayhew, and a Pimp Darth Vader.