12th Night is upon us once again, and we hope you’ll join us tomorrow night to dance through the streets of East Austin and shake off those winter blues. As we wrote about the tradition leading up to our first (amazing, beautiful) year of 12th night:

“This is your chance to shake off the winter doldrums, gather together your krewe, and celebrate with your community. Austin is ripe for a new tradition and you can help us bring some New Orleans cheer and old world magic to this city.”

Last year we had over 700 people participate, and it was surely a sight to behold! The krewes were out in full force and it was a thing of beauty to see so many smiling, gorgeous faces reveling in the true joy of our diverse community. You can see some pictures from last year here!

A timeline of the evening’s events:

• 8pm: Gather at Maison d’Etoile for pre-parade libations and last minute costume fluffery
• 9pm sharp: Minor Mishap Marching Band will lead us in procession through our neighborhood to The Scoot Inn (about a mile)
• 10pm: Masquerade Ball at the Historic Scoot Inn, where there will be dancing to the East Side Dandies, photoboothing and king cake eating!
• 12midnight: We will crown our publicly voted upon Queen and King!

Remember — this is the beginning of January and it will be COLD! Wear your warmest, your sparkliest, and good walking shoes for the trek.

Last year we also put together some krewe inspiration, based on some modern costumery that we really love, but this year we’ve been really inspired by costumes of old — from theatre productions, film sets, burlesque beauties, and more. Below are some of our favorites and we hope they get you inspired to bust out your glue guns and piles of rhinestones to make some magic happen.

We hope you found these beauties and brutes as inspiring as we did, and that you’ll join us tomorrow evening for 12th Night Austin 2014! More event details can be found here, and loads more inspiration is on our Pinterest board.

May your 2014 be auspicious and bright!

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