It’s April, and in San Antonio that means Fiesta. Amid the parades, A Night in Old San Antonio and other crowded events, there’s another, quieter attraction that remains popular year after year: the exhibit of Fiesta royalty gowns at the Witte Museum.

Michaele Haynes has curated the annual exhibit for 14 years, and on a recent morning she was hard at work pulling ornate gowns and trains from the big boxes where they are stored.

The museum has a collection of 165 Order of the Alamo gowns that were donated to the museum by former royalty and their families.

In addition, gowns created this year for other Fiesta royalty such as the Queen of Soul, Miss Fiesta, Teen Queen, La Reina de la Feria de las Flores and the San Antonio Charro Association Queen have been loaned to the museum for the display.

Those royals have other gowns they wear during Fiesta, Haynes explained.

The exhibit opens April 17 – the day before Fiesta begins – and runs through Sept. 1 in the Betty Coates Textile Gallery on the second floor of the Witte. It is free with museum admission.

“The museum has been displaying these gowns off and on since the 1930s,” Haynes said. “We show them because the public wants to see them. We have a theme for each year’s exhibit, and this one is Fiesta Dances. I chose that because dancing is so prevalent throughout Fiesta.”

Gowns with dance themes will be displayed, along with photos from Fiesta balls and other dance events from years past. Costumes from square dance, Bavarian dance and others will be shown, and there will be a slide show of dance events running continuously during exhibit hours.

Haynes is including a display of items from the Fiesta Fete, an event involving local dance students that was part of Fiesta from 1911 until the mid-1960s. She has programs and photos from that event.

Order of the Alamo gowns that reflect the dance theme include one that was worn by Lucie Carr Armstrong, Queen of the Court of Enchanted Dance in 1955, and another from Ruth Ann Davis, Princess of Ethereal Splendor that same year.

Davis’ outfit is embellished with sequined pink ballerinas that are the inspiration for this year’s official Witte Fiesta pin. It’s available in the museum store.

There’s a gown from Millicent Ann Bleakney, Lady of Merry Music and Enchanted Dance, from 1959. And the one worn by Anne McLean, Duchess of Opera in 1960, has a train that features Spanish dancers symbolizing the opera “Carmen.”

“We’ll have six Order of the Alamo gowns and five gowns from current royalty on display,” Haynes said. “The gowns will be on stands but the trains will be hung on the wall so people can see them better.”

Those who are familiar with the ornately beaded gowns and trains of today’s Coronation gowns will notice that those from the 1950s are simpler, though still beautiful.

There’s lots of gold cloth and some beading, but the outfits of yesteryear aren’t as heavy as the ones today.

“The workmanship of all these gowns is absolutely incredible,” Haynes said. “I love the ‘50s and ‘60s gowns because the details of the court themes are easier to see. The ones today are beautiful, but they are much more heavily embellished with beads and sequins and you can’t see some of the designs as easily.

There aren’t that many cities that have this type of pageant anymore.

“Americans are fascinated with faux royalty. And even those who aren’t official royals create their own royal identity through the pins and the costumes they make for themselves,” she said.

For more information about the exhibit, call 357-1900 or visit www.wittemuseum.org.  

Karen Davis, a veteran San Antonio journalist, will write an occasional arts column for this paper. To send her comments or suggestions for coverage, e-mail her at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .