New York City’s Easter Parade dates back to at least the 1870s. Still, we can only imagine what Victorian ladies would say about the flamboyant costumes and bonnets nowadays as thousands stroll up Fifth Avenue from 49th Street to 57th Street.

Originally, fashionable turn-of-the-century ladies would wear their finest finery to Easter Mass, and area churches would be festooned with increasingly ornate flora arrangements.  The spirit of spectacle became more and more primary, though, until now, the event is essentially a secular celebration of fashion, frivolity, and extravagance.  Some still wear their (Easter) Sunday best, of course, though they are outnumbered by the participants—couples, drag queens, families and even pets –in outre costumes.