February 2024

A xylophone player who visited New Orleans 40 years ago has become the impresario of Carnival costuming and founder of the Mardi Gras Museum – now in a new spacious location on North Rampart Street.

– by Dean M. Shapiro

Photos by Ellis Anderson unless otherwise attributed

Editor’s note: This story is the first in a new series spotlighting museums in the French Quarter and the surrounding neighborhoods.  Look for a new one by Dean every six weeks!

When Carl Mack first arrived in New Orleans in 1984, just in time for the World’s Fair, he frequented Jackson Square, playing for tips on a wheeled xylophone that he built from scratch.

Today, 40 years later, as the owner/entertainer of the Mardi Gras Museum of Costumes and Culture and a self-made entrepreneur, Carl has found his niche renting costumes and staging mini-parades and other celebratory events for conventioneers, visitors and locals under his business name “Carl Mack Presents . . .” 

The centerpiece of his holdings is the museum, which is the largest private collection of festive costumes in New Orleans. It also serves as Carl’s base of operations. He estimates that the museum is visited by between 1,000 and 1,500 people a month.

As he prepares to guide visitors through his museum, Carl likes to start his tour (or “show” as he prefers to call it) by relating a story from his street-performing days.

Referring to his repertoire he says, “But there was always one song for which I could never find any sheet music. It was called ‘Somewhere Else.’ I’d be playing in front of one of the stores and the owner would come out and say, ‘Hey Mister Xylophone Man. Can you play somewhere else?’”

Carl still has that original xylophone and it’s one of the hundreds of artifacts he has on display in the two main rooms of the facility. He will play a song or two on it and sing the lyrics just prior to guiding visitors through his lavish and extensive displays. Relying on his vast wealth of knowledge, he explains what many of the displays represent in the unique festive culture of New Orleans. 

Greeting the visitors’ eyes are hand-stitched Mardi Gras Indian suits; colorful costumes of second-line parading groups, especially the Treme Sidewalk Steppers Social Aid and Pleasure Club; regal costumes worn by Mardi Gras krewe royalty, including kings, queens, captains and officers; headpieces and feather boas worn by the women in their krewes; and even some of the glittering attire formerly worn onstage by the late entertainer, Chris Owens, at her namesake Bourbon Street club. Carl even lets visitors try some of the costume pieces on and pose for photos – especially children on school field trips.

“There are  really three parts to the museum,” Carl pointed out. “There’s the exhibit which is informative to learn the history of Carnival. I wrote the script for it and it touches on all the aspects of Carnival and costumes in New Orleans. The next part is our show. We don’t charge extra for it. If you come in and catch the show, that’s an extra enhancement for your trip.”

The third part is the costume storage area at the rear of the facility, which is accessible to staff members only. Behind that is a work area where costumes are built to customers’ specifications.

A native of Rochester, New York who studied percussion at the Eastman School of Music, Carl is someone who seems to be perpetually happy and upbeat. A smile is quick to come to his face when describing his work. There is a story behind every garment in his collection’s storage area where thousands of costumes hang from double-decker racks, organized into specifically designated categories.

An active participant in Mardi Gras festivities as a two-time Queen of the now-defunct Krewe of Satyricon and current co-captain of the Krewe of Stars, Carl’s fascination with costumes led to him collecting them and renting them out. As he described it, “We were about 10 years on Marigny Street, working out of my former home, but we started running out of storage room. So in 2008 we opened a shop on Dauphine Street (in the French Quarter) and we were there for five years. And then [in 2013] we moved over here to 318 North Rampart Street.”

But all three of those early locations were strictly costume rental shops. The concept of a museum began germinating in Carl’s mind a few years after moving to the North Rampart location. A vacancy came up just around the corner at 1010 Conti Street and the location had several side rooms in addition to a long hallway-like room running down the center of the facility.

“I went over and looked at the space,” Carl explained, “and saw all the different rooms and thought ‘This would make a great museum. Why don’t we take some of the costumes, get some mannequins and create an exhibit so people can actually see the costumes?’ Up until then, the whole collection was on garment racks jammed in so tightly that you couldn’t see anything.”

“So the idea of a museum came about because the space became available on Conti,” Carl continued. “I did five years over there. It was expensive, so, after that lease was over, we moved back to where we were before on North Rampart.” And that’s where the museum and his office are today.

“It’s less space than what we had on Conti Street but it works better as a museum because the lighting is more controlled,” Carl explained. “There are windows in the front and windows in the back but it’s like a blackout venue in the middle so we can really control the lighting for the museum and I think it’s a much nicer feel.”

The facility also offers a large venue where Carl hosts parties, weddings and other special events, many of which are costumed affairs.

In addition to the costumes in the museum, Carl has collected other regalia associated with Mardi Gras. These include masks, elaborate feathered headpieces and display cases containing crowns for kings of various parades, tiaras for queens and princesses, and sparkling jewelry items that adorn the wearers’ costumes during the parades. Of special interest is a crown worn by a former Rex, King of Carnival, along with scepters and other royal regalia. And, of course, Mardi Gras beads are festooned throughout.

Tours for groups of visitors, usually one per day, start at 2:00 in the afternoon. Tour-goers are greeted with an introduction from Carl or his assistant, Eddrinea Lindsey, if he is unavailable. Visitors are shown a short film that explains the Mardi Gras traditions of costuming and parading through the streets of New Orleans and other locales outside the city. There are between 35 and 40 folding chairs for viewers to sit on and folded, mini-umbrellas are hung from the backs of some of the chairs, to be used in a mockup second-line parade. 

The tours usually lasts for about half an hour, after which visitors spend equal or more time in the “Costume Closet”, an area with authentic Mardi Gras headpieces, Medici collars, capes and tunics, where they can dress up and take unlimited photographs.  Customers also browse the gift shop adjacent to the front entrance and select from a wide variety of Mardi Gras-related paraphernalia.

“But we don’t like to call it a ‘tour.’ We call it a ‘show,’” Carl explained. “It has to do with me being a showman. People buy tickets for the show. They might come in for self-guided tours at times other than when the show is going on but, for the best experience, the history and culture of New Orleans comes out more in the show.” 

Also, using the museum as a home base, Carl, at the behest of the New Orleans & Co. tourism organization, has been instrumental in reviving the Living History Project. Formerly sponsored by the city’s Office of Tourism and Arts, the project would put actors portraying famous New Orleans historical characters into period costumes and wigs and send them out into the French Quarter to educate and entertain bystanders about New Orleans’ colorful history. 

The Historical Characters project had been dormant for about five years before Carl and others began reviving it over the past few months. According to Carl, it went over very successfully at the 2023 Christmas Festival in the Morial Convention Center. Historical characters portrayed included Jean Lafitte, Louis Armstrong, Marie Laveau, Baroness Pontalba, Madame Begue and others.

The troupe has been invited to return to the Christmas Festival in 2024, according to Carl.

Coming up on the current Carnival Season, which Carl calls “our busiest time of the year,” he and his staff are experienced at preparing for it – especially handling the influx of school groups that flock to the facility. 

“Throughout Carnival we play an educational part,” Carl said, noting that the children and their chaperones enjoy trying on the costumes and posing for pictures at the end of the show.

Other busy times for Carl and the museum are Halloween, which is synonymous with costuming, and, surprisingly, during the summer months as well. 

As he observes, “I have found that, in the past five years or so, tourism doesn’t dip off as much in the summertime. It used to, but now there are people here all year long.  This is good for me and good for our city.

“The great thing about having a museum is seeing the joy it brings to people who are learning about our city. I wasn’t getting that sense of joy just having a costume shop.” 

As for the time he spends working at his business, he said it usually involves about 12 hours a day – and more during large special events like Mardi Gras, of course.

“But I love what I do,” Carl says. “And I love the neighborhood. Almost every day for the past forty years I’ve been happily here in the Quarter.”