House of Larréon

ats as well as annual visits with his family to the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus when it came to town. A childhood meet & greet with one of the elephant riders in the arena parking lot after a show was a pivotal moment when Larry first considered the mystery and magic of stage costuming and showmanship. During his high school years in the mid-1980's, Larry hung out at punk & hardcore shows, played saxophone in rock/funk bands, and took a sewing class as a home ec requirement. Parliament/Funkadelic, Pee Wee's Playhouse, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Guns n' Roses, the new Batman movie, and the cheap 1950's and 1960's clothing & stuff you could get at the St. Louis thrift stores were some of his obsessions & influences in those days. In 1989, Larry moved to New York to study art at NYU. The core of his art education was in conceptual, minimal, non-object based, performance, and video art. Parallel to all of this seriousness was Larry's enthusiastic immersion in a newly discovered afternoon/nightlife at hard-drinking country bars that catered to minors. It was inevitable that the music and aesthetics of this world would find their way into Larry's art work, ultimately leading to videos and live performances. The costumes for Larry's shows started off simple: found garments altered, adorned and embellished with mix-matched patches and trims to create a showbiz poverty look. But as the act expanded to include Larry's sister Janet and her husband Randy, Larry drew upon his skills learned in high school sewing class, starting from scratch to make coordinated looks for the 3 of them. The costumes became works of art in themselves, as they were made largely by hand and with obsessive embroidered details, exaggerated scales, and flamboyant embellishments. After several years of performing at art galleries and museums including the New Museum and the Whitney, in 2003, Larry first performed outside of his comfort zone of the artworld at Julian Fleisher's Monday music night at the Starlight Bar & Lounge in the East Village. During this time, Larry met many downtown performers who were also part of Julian's roster-- among them Kenny Mellman, Bridget Everett, David Clement, and a certain handsome accordionist/singer and then-member of the band The Isotoners, Jim Andralis who performed with Larry during that first show at The Starlight and moved quickly to become his sexy loving partner in life. While continuing to do his solo act, Larry developed a spin-off duo with Jim. They performed at the Starlight, Dixon Place, Tonic, the Living Room and regularly at Joe's Pub in Our Hit Parade, a monthly variety show hosted by Kenny Mellman, Bridget Everett, and Neal Medlyn. Devastated by Beyonce's House of Darréon's discontinuation of their line of big girl evening wear, Bridget turned to Larry for some new stage looks, and House of Larréon was born!