The Tracy family in their store. Photo by Bethany Rogers.
This family business dates back to 1959 when the Item merged with New Orleans’ other major evening newspaper, the States, and William Tracy Senior, the Circulation Manager of the Item, couldn’t bring himself to work for the competition. Instead, William bought a five and dime store in Harrahan that he quickly renamed Jefferson Variety. Through twists and turns over the next two decades, the family business moved into the fabric and Mardi Gras throw markets and lured in lots of the Tracy clan along the way, including William Tracy the Third, known as Rusty, and his wife, Lisa, who now run the store with the help of their daughter, Roxanne, son, Scott, niece, Tiffany, and nephew, Travis, as well as Travis’ wife, Jessica. The family moved the business in 1986 to an eccentric, low rambling brick building that features an interesting assortment of salvaged architectural pieces from the building’s days as Ricca’s Demolishing. The family store sits on an old piece of railroad property on Iris Avenue just off River Road in Old Jefferson, where the Tracys have lived for several generations.
Some of the many fabrics available at Jefferson Variety. Photo by Bethany Rogers.
If you take a left when you walk inside Jefferson Variety, you will find the colorful, jumbled stacks of cloth, sequins, lace, and trim that make up the store’s fabric and costume supply department. Mardi Gras Indians, Carnival debutantes, social aid and pleasure clubs, fashion designers, and other local creatives flock en mass to this costume supply shop that meets their extremely diverse and tactile needs from purple leopard-print velvet to hot pink mirabeau to orange fur trim. Jefferson Variety is the only large fabric and costume supply shop remaining in the metro area, a necessity for our city’s costumed traditions and revelers. If you take a right when you step inside the store, you can wander down the lines of bins with samples of the countless throws the business has stored away in the 9 neighboring storehouses (the store gets a 16-wheeler container shipment of plastic Saint Patrick’s Day flowers each year alone!). Jefferson Variety is the oldest throw supplier in town since Oriental Merchandise closed in April of 2008, an achievement of esteem in New “throw-me-something” Orleans.
Cree McCree, a local fashion designer, said, “I lived in New Orleans for a couple years before I found out about Jefferson Variety, which totally changed my life as a costume designer. It has the answer to all my Mardi Gras needs: fabulous fabrics, sequins, appliques, hat forms, and a king’s ransom of feathers and plumes. Its importance to New Orleans culture cannot be overstated. Joann’s and Michael’s are no substitute for the real deal. No way Zulu royalty and Mardi Gras Indians are gonna settle for generic mall stuff. Me either!”
Roxanne Baracco (Lisa and Rusty Tracy’s daughter), Assistant Manager of the Fabric Department, said, “It’s important because the Mardi Gras Indians come here for what they need. I only know of one other place that sells the things that we do for them. And the supplies for the second line clubs. There’s so many necessities they get here in order for them to be able to do what they do. As far as I know, we’re the only local business that carries krewe satins in bulk. We get clubs from Houma, Lafayette, Mobile. We even get phone orders from California and Missouri. For it being a local, family-business, it’s something to say if somebody’s calling you from California looking for second line umbrellas. It’s nice to be with your family everyday. And when the same customers come in here all the time and they know me and my family. Plenty of the customers we have, have been knowing me since I was 3, 4 years old. And it’s something I’d like to pass on to my kids. And our kids are here with us every day, sitting at the table doing their homework, just like we did.”
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