An Easter Bonnet with Frills Upon It

In New Orleans, Easter presents a perfect opportunity for millinery ingenuity!

Whether religious or not, members of the GLBT community in New Orleans have plenty to do on Easter Sunday. During the day on any Sunday throughout the year, French Quarter gay bars normally have a relaxed, casual atmosphere with happy hour specials and some low-key entertainment—a counterpoint to the partying of Friday and Saturday nights. Easter Sunday takes that family-like feeling and brings it to the streets during the annual Gay Easter Parade.

Being nowhere near as wild or extravagant as a Mardi Gras parade, the Gay Easter Parade takes a leisurely route through the French Quarter, passing every gay bar and many gay-owned restaurants and retail shops. The paraders ride horse-drawn carriages or floats while wearing showy versions of their Sunday finest. Or a gaggle of motorcycle dudes in leather and Easter bonnets might roar by. As with any parade in New Orleans, spectators wave and call out for beads and other throws.

A couple of other parades also wind through the French Quarter on Easter Sunday, including Chris Owens’. Chris Owens is a big-haired, long-legged, Las Vegas-style entertainer whose club on Bourbon St. has been drawing in both tourists and locals for decades. She counts gays and lesbians among her fans, and her impressive “patriotic” parade directly precedes the gay parade.

There’s also the Easter Bonnet Contest at Good Friends Bar, a gay neighborhood bar on Dauphine St. Anyone can join in and some of the bonnet entries can get pretty outlandish. The crowd votes for the winners. Irving Berlin’s song from the classic musical Easter Parade is always on the lips of many people there:

“In your Easter bonnet with all the frills upon it,
You’ll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade!”