Painting Mardi Gras giantsIn 1985, Massoud Dalili started a home-based business making leather and feather masks. Ten years later he opened his first studio on St. Peter's Street in the French Quarter. A post-Katrina decline in tourist traffic forced him to shut down the original shop and consolidate the business into his second, larger Royal Street location.
For several years, he also made ceramic pieces. "Then Chinese copies killed that," says Dalili, who closed his two ceramic mask plants in 1992 after exporters started copying his designs.
His current creations sell for $70 to $400 a piece to customers who wear them at Mardi Gras balls, Halloween and New Year's Eve parties and masked weddings. He also carries imported Venetian masks and a wide range of glassworks, jewelry and sculpture by other artists.
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