EUNICE, La. — For the past six years, The Eunice Mardi Gras Association has partnered with a local boutique shop, Beaucoup, to display traditional Courir de Mardi Gras costumes right just before carnival season.
"So I call them in, and they come in, and they dance; they do all kinds of crazy things like ask for money, climb trees, and even crawl through the drain pipes," said Capitaine Patrick Frey.
The traditional practice is called Courir de Mardi Gras. It is a Mardi Gras tradition where runners beg on foot for gumbo ingredients and money.
While they beg and catch chickens, the runners are dressed in true Mardi Gras style.
I made all of the costumes that are being displayed except for the one setting in the chair in the other window," said Amanda Bordelon, Courir de Mardi Gras costume designer and EMGA Secretary Treasure.
Here at Beaucoup, a boutique in Downtown Eunice, members from the Eunice Mardi Gras Association come and decorate the storefront windows with these traditional Mardi Gras costumes that carry a century-old tradition. Handmade and stitched with bright and festive colors and unique patterns, runners dress head to toe in these costumes. Back in South Louisiana, around the late 1800s, small communities would participate in Courir de Mardi Gras or the run of Fat Tuesday. Participants would dress up wearing these carnival fabrics.
"The chickens they catch are for the communal gumbo," said Bordelon.
"The costumes are made out of several different kinds of materials," said Frey.
During that period, most communities were poor.
"So they would take these materials and make their costumes; the ladies mostly did the hard work," said Frey.
Amanda Bordelon designs the costumes for family and friends, stitching each fabric telling a Mardi Gras fairytale and even one little history.
"We are one of the few runs in this area that allow women to run; I guess you can say we are all-inclusive," said Bordelon
Come February 13th, Fat Tuesday, these costumes will come alive once again as those wearing them will be out to beg and gather the ingredients for that gumbo. It all starts in Eunice at 7:00 a.m.
For more information on the Eunice Mardi Gras schedule, click here
