By Ed Avis
An example of a costume designed by Sherman Mire for his Mardi Gras krewe
Have you ever stared at the elaborate costumes worn by Mardi Gras krewes or Las Vegas performers and wondered how the fabulously glitzy parts of those costumes are made? In many cases, those parts are appliques. The applique technique involves creating the desired design – such as an animal, flower, or other motif – on a separate piece of fabric and then attaching it to the costume.
The applique world is where Sherman Mire lives.
For seven years Mire was the captain of a Mardi Gras krewe in Lafayette, Louisiana, which meant he was responsible for the design theme of the krewe, the ball, and all the related elements.
“Truth be, it’s a full-time job in itself,” Mire says. “But I loved it.”
As that gig was ending, Mire’s regular job on the commercial side of Sears also was ending. He took an early retirement in 2017 when the store he was working in closed.
“That was on a Wednesday, and Friday I went out to dinner and someone said, ‘Oh, did you hear that Miss Anne is selling her business?’” Mire remembers. “I was like, ‘Oh my God,’ the timing was amazing.”
Miss Anne is Anne Monlezun, and her business was Appliques with Glitz, an important wholesale supplier of elaborate hand-made appliques that featured rhinestones, beads and other accoutrements. Mire immediately called Monlezun and struck a deal to buy her company.
Mire moved the company from Lake Charles, Louisiana to Abbeville, a town just south of Lafayette. He and his spouse, Sean Marlow, spent the next couple of years learning the business and growing the custom side, creating appliques for many Mardi Gras costumes.
Things were going great…until COVID. The retailers who sold Appliques with Glitz products shut down and business suffered greatly, Mire says. But they muscled through those tough years.
In 2023 another opportunity arose – the owner of Sequin Appliques in Phoenix, Arizona, a customer of Mire’s, told him she wanted to sell. The following year he flew out to see her inventory and was floored. She had acquired several other companies, including one in Texas and one in Las Vegas, and had a 3,000-square-foot garage full of amazing appliques and related supplies.
“The variety is insane,” Mire says. “I mean, it’s anything you can think of. There are sequin appliques, some rhinestone stuff, some yardages (strings of rhinestones), even some vintage stuff. There is also bullion thread and appliques and tons of bags of loose glass beads.”
Mire and Marlow agreed to purchase the company, and in May 2024 a semi-trailer full of the products arrived in Abbeville. They rented five storage units to hold everything.
That led to the next big move: They bought a building – a former feed store – and moved the inventory of both businesses into it. As they were moving the bins into the new location, Mire finally got a chance to more closely examine his purchase.
The new location, not yet cleaned up
“There must be 9 or 10,000 different items,” he says. “And every time I come across a new item, it’s not like there are 60 or 80 of them. No, it’s a thousand or 1,400. And I still have 110 bins left to unpack!”
What does all this mean for NCA members? It means that if you need appliques or related supplies, you know where to go! Appliques with Glitz has long been a valued NCA Vendor Member, and Mire welcomes NCA Buyer members to check out the inventory on the sites of both companies, appliqueswithglitz.com and sequinappliques.com. There is still a great deal of inventory that has not been photographed and put on the sites, but you can see a good sample there.
Both sites are set up for ecommerce, and Mire has created a special code for NCA members to get the wholesale price (50% off Sequin Appliques and 40% off Appliques with Glitz). To get the code, email Ed Avis at executivedirector@costumers.org.
Have fun shopping!