Carnival 2018 takes on special significance as New Orleans celebrates its tricentennial. Many parades will draw inspiration from the city’s 300th birthday, but none as irreverently as Krewe de Vieux, whose theme this year is Bienville’s Wet Dream. Bienville, the founder of New Orleans, lived to be 87 and never married. Just saying.
Although Krewe de Vieux is a relatively new krewe (founded in 1987), it exemplifies the essential spirit of 19th Century Creole Carnival and is the only parade to still roll through the French Quarter.
In 1979 a group of artists formed the Krewe of Clones and staged a walking parade in which participants dressed as cockroaches. In subsequent years, the Krewe of Clones grew and before long sub-krewes began to develop. The parades staged by the Krewe of Clones were so impertinent that in 1986, the city revoked the krewe’s parade permit because the parade was scheduled the night before Super Bowl XX (which was in New Orleans that year) and officals feared the parade would embarrass the city in the national media.
Consequently, the Krewe of Clones split up, some factions wanting to make the Krewe “more respectable,” while others insisted on keeping it low-brow.
In a 1995 Offbeat Magazine article, Jack Jackson observes: “It was then that Don Marshall, one of the instigators of the original Clones and at the time a director of Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carre, suggested parading in the Quarter. ‘Nobody had any parade in the French Quarter since they’d been banned in the 1970s,’ Kern says. ‘But they hadn’t banned marching clubs.’ So, the Krewe of Underwear and the Seeds of Decline were joined by Mid City White Trash (now the Krewe of L.E.W.D.—Loose Ensemble of Whacked Degenerates), Wigs of the World (now Krewe of the Mystic Inane), and the Krewe of C.R.U.D.E. for their first march through the Vieux Carre as the Krewe Du Vieux, on Valentine’s Day 1987. The theme: ‘Get a Heart On,’ with Charmaine Neville for Queen and an effigy of Sheriff Harry Lee for King.”
Of the aforementioned sub-krewes, the Krewe of the Mystic Inane has always had a strong contingent of gay members and has been described as Krewe de Vieux’s first “gay sub-krewe.”
According to Le Monde de Merde, the club’s annual newspaper, “the Krewe du Vieux’s 17 subkrewes include the Krewe of C.R.U.D.E., Krewe of Space Age Love, Krewe of Underwear, Seeds of Decline, Krewe of Mama Roux, Krewe of L.E.W.D., Krewe of Drips and Discharges, Krewe of K.A.O.S., Knights of Mondu, T.O.K.I.N., Krewe Rue Bourbon, Krewe de C.R.A.P.S., Mystic Krewe of Spermes, Mystic Krewe of Comatose, Mystic Krewe of Inane and Krewe du Mishigas.”
Krewe de Vieux rolls in the French Quarter on Saturday, January 27.
