Wench Wigs Dropped for 2003 Parade

Style, $$ cited for switch to hats, tinsel

Philadelphia Daily News – December 11, 2002

By RON GOLDWYN

WENCH DRESS: Check. Beer pouch: Check. Hairy legs: Check.

Braided wig? Negative.

The wench wig, one of the most recognizable symbols of Mummery along with back-pieces and parasols, will virtually disappear from the 2003 Mummers Parade.

For stylistic and financial reasons, the five largest wench brigades — more than 1,500 men and boys in dresses — have chosen not to reorder the long white or black wigs.

The new headgear: kerchiefs, tinsel hair, sombreros and parrot heads.

Even the legendary James "Froggy" Carr New Year Brigade, third-largest single unit on Jan. 1 with more than 600 marchers, has traded three-foot polyester braids for a mophead look to fit its Raggedy Ann theme.

"We’re going in a bright red wig to stay with the costume," said Captain Tommy Malony. "Next year we’ll be back to normal, I guess."

The switch isn’t orchestrated or permanent; smaller units and unaffiliated wenches known as stragglers may still go wiggy, especially for the informal New Year’s night parade along Two Street.

But it adds up to a break with tradition on a New Year’s Day when the raucous and colorful wenches will otherwise be more visible than ever.

The brigades — Froggy Carr, Pirates, Riverfront, O’Malley and Bryson — will start the day with an unofficial cakewalk up Broad Street from Snyder Avenue, brass bands blaring.

That’s just to reach the wenches’ starting line at 16th and Market streets.

In the parade itself, the wenches will strut back to back at the end of the Comic Division, competing for first-ever special wench prizes. Then they’ll entertain Mummers fans along Market East and end with a battle of the bands deep in South Philadelphia on New Year’s night.

Wench wigs have been a staple in the Mummers Comic Division more or less forever. The costume is actually a macho statement, following Mummery’s tradition of mockery and role reversal, and it’s a cleaned up version of blackface costumes outlawed in 1964.

Wench guys still wear pantaloons, which they love to show with a bawdy flip of the hem, and their pouches often contain brewed contraband. Golden painted footwear also is a staple.

Braids come in two lengths. By custom, or maybe by tall tale, long braids identified over-21 wenches allowed to drink the nectar of the beer truck. Short braids went for teens banished to the soda bar.

One factor in the decline of wiggery, says Riverfront Captain Tom Kelhower, is cost: $10.50 wholesale and about $15 retail for the long braids, $5 wholesale for the shorter version.

That’s $2,000 saved for Riverfront, 191 strong, strutting in Mexican-style "Wencheros" dresses this year. "We’re wearing sombreros and kerchiefs," Kelhower said. "It’s a lot cheaper."

Wenches used to be free-lance individuals but, in recent years, have formed into brigades. Several have opened year-round clubhouses and charge their strutters up to $190 for the costume and partying rights.

While South Philly closets bulge with old Mummers suits and dresses, wigs rarely survive a single day’s merriment. Cleaning and deodorizing are out of the question.

Odd man out in the wigless revolution is Alan Miller, president of Novelty Hair Goods Co., of Camden, the prime maker of wench wigs since the 1950s.

Miller said he’s sold as many as 1,500 of the handmade,labor-intensive wigs some years, but hasn’t had a single order for 2003.

"We’re a seasonal company, we primarily make beards and wigs for the Halloween and Santa Claus industries, and it was a nice little fill-in," Miller said. But, he added, "I don’t have an outlet any more."

Miller used to sell through Louisa’s, a Mummers supply shop at 2nd and Moore streets. A building collapse killed owner Adolph Stahl in July 2000, and the wig trade has suffered.

The parade’s second-biggest club, the Pirates, started the wigless trend. The mateys adopted pirate-style bandannas for their first strut in 1995, to go with those pirate dresses and pirate bloomers.

Bryson, a family brigade that traces its roots back acentury, really shook things up with tinsel hair in 1997 when they copped first prize for wenches-in-space. This year they’re Jimmy Buffett clones with parrot heads.

"The theme dictates it. It’s personal choice," said Mikey "Gootch" Bryson, a leader of the 125-member Bryson NYB and an organizer of the all-wench mini-parade.