The Clinton Hill lady who transforms her stately mansion every Halloween into the neighborhood’s spookiest haunted house can pin another fantastical achievement onto her lapel: a winner at the Mermaid Parade.
Janna Hyten’s team, aptly dubbed “Janna’s Extravaganza: The Parade within a Parade,” took the Judge’s Choice award for best costume at the 25th annual parade on Saturday.
Hyten donned a Cruella de Vil costume, complete with a tank-top hewn from stuffed Dalmatian toys (two dog-heads filled in for sea-shells), a black parasol, and a mermaid bottom. Her cast of merfolk — whose costumes were hand-made by Hyten — included Flavor Flav Filet, Norma Desmondfish, Cecil B. De Mullet of Seafood Boulevard, and Elfish.
Hyten is not a costume-maker by trade. Her experience pretty much boils down to watching her mom and grandmother sew, her home economics class, oh, and a brief stint at the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus in 1981.
“I relined the G-strings, bra tops and hats,” said Hyten, who is “53 going on 23.” “It was disgusting.”
After that, she got a job as one of dozens of Disney designers, but at the Mermaid Parade, Hyten is the Big Fish.
“It’s very egotistical,” she said. “It’s my one day to be Paris Hilton. But no one knows who I am. I can totally be in disguise.”
Even better, she won without giving the judges the traditional bribe. In the creative anarchy, it apparently slipped her mind.
