Creative Outlet
Jo 'Boobs' Weldon, headmistress of the New York School of Burlesque, performs in a costume by Maddog Swing.
MONTY LEMAN/Provided
Baton Rouge native Amanda Madden [niece of J. R. Madden] admits that she wasn’t cut out for working in a cubicle.
Her new career gives her plenty of freedom and allows her to work with fun materials — sequins, crystals and, of course, plenty of ostrich feathers.
Today, Madden is a costume maker and fashion designer under the label Maddog Swing Costume, Couture & Corsetry. Her clients include New York City’s top burlesque performers.
Madden grew up in the Shenandoah area of Baton Rouge. She graduated from Woodlawn High School in 1991.
She taught herself to sew by reading books and by taking apart clothes and putting them back together.
“I had a very individual idea of style and wasn’t impressed with what was in stores,” she said.
After a period of “drifting about,” Madden said, she moved to New Orleans, where she got a job making costumes for the theater troupe Running With Scissors.
Her work on the production of “Camille” won a Big Easy Award in 2002.
She was also making costumes for other individuals and had a successful business doing alterations — until Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005.
After Katrina, Madden said, “people weren’t really thinking about costumes or new clothes.”
Her rent was steadily increasing and she wasn’t making enough money to pay her bills. Madden said she also was in a bad relationship.
“I just got fed up one day,” Madden said.
Eleven months after Katrina, Madden left Louisiana.
When she was younger, Madden said, she pictured herself living in one of two places — New Orleans or New York City.
“I was obsessed from the time I was 5,” Madden said of New York.
“I can’t even remember how it started,” she said. “The rush. The possibilities that were there. Everything you saw on television, it just looked glamorous.”
She bought a one-way plane ticket to New York City. An acquaintance let her sleep on her couch for a few days.
Luckily, she got a job through a temp agency moving boxes in the buyer’s office of Saks Fifth Avenue.
“I found out I was not cut out to being in a cubicle,” Madden said. “The cliques, the politics, it was very constricting all over again.”
While living in New Orleans, Madden had friends who performed with the New Orleans burlesque troupe the Shim Shamettes.
In New York, she found a creative outlet in the burlesque world — performing and making her own costumes.
No one at her office job knew her stage name — Fleur De Lys.
“It was very freeing,” Madden said. “It really built up a lot of my self-esteem.”
The scene was different than what she expected, Madden said. Women of all shapes and sizes were viewed as confident, beautiful and funny.
“To see it go from classic to slapstick, I just felt like I had a home there,” Madden said.
This past weekend, Madden unveiled 20 of her latest designs at a fashion show in a well-known venue in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village.
She started planning The Maddog Swing Burlesque Fashion Spectacular in January — sending out e-mails to some of the most talented people she knew in the burlesque industry.
All of the performers agreed to model in exchange for a custom-designed outfit, Madden said.
A lot of work goes into planning each outfit, Madden said. She takes into consideration each performer’s style when designing, and watches videos to get a better idea of past routines.
Her costumes include tons of sequins, crystals and feathers.
“You want to go over the top,” she said. “You want to make sure the person in the back of the room sees how glamorous that costume is.”
As for Sunday’s show, Madden said it was a success.
“I woke up this morning (Monday) and my Facebook page was going crazy,” she said.
Madden said the best part was walking through the model lineup before the start of the show.
“I saw all of these people I adore wearing my clothes, my pieces,” she said. “My heart just exploded.”
Besides burlesque costumes, Madden’s designs include vintage-inspired dresses and nontraditional wedding gowns.
In New Orleans, she created wedding attire for a voodoo wedding.
“I like to stick with people who cannot walk into David’s Bridal and find what they’re looking for,” she said.
Madden has relatives in Prairieville, Hammond and Port Vincent.
“I don’t think they’ve ever seen a burlesque show so it’s still pretty out there,” Madden said. “I don’t know that they really understand it, but they’re proud of me.”
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