Festival celebrates Mexican icon, breaks record for Frida Kahlo lookalikes

It took nearly 300 ‘Fridas’ — including some ‘Fridos’ — to break a record honoring an iconic Mexican artist. Photo: ¡Viva Frida!

Houston, Texas — Almost 300 men, women and children have broken the record for the largest crowd of Frida Kahlo lookalikes.

So says the Guinness Book of World Records, which verified the numbers on Monday.

The milestone was achieved at the regional ¡Viva Frida! festival, an event organized by the East End Studio Gallery since 2005.

The festival on Saturday featured exhibitions devoted to the iconic Mexican artist, in addition to the foods of both Mexico and Texas.

Lizbeth Ortiz, one of the organizers of the event, said that participants were asked to attend with costumes or certain characteristic features that represented Kahlo, such as “for example, having eyebrows together using paint or synthetic hair … at least three types of flowers on the head, a floral print dress up to below the knees and a red or pink rebozo, without patterns, among others.”

“I was born here in the United States and I am of Mexican-American descent, and Frida’s example reflects that Hispanic identity of our own that helps us understand who we are as we are and we should be proud of it,” said Díaz, who also said that events of this nature are necessary “not only because it is important to keep the art alive, but to celebrate our roots, to always know where we have come from to make it present, as a legacy to future generations.”

The festival needed to exceed 275 participants to break the record, set last year in Dallas. Although headlines in 2017 said thousands of people were dressed as Frida in Dallas, only 275 qualified under somewhat stringent standards of what constituted a proper impersonation.

“I was born here in the United States and I am of Mexican-American descent, and Frida’s example reflects that own Hispanic identity that helps us understand who we are as we are and we should be proud of it,” said Celia Diaz, art and language teacher who participated with an outfit brought from Oaxaca,  a long nightgown and colorful flowers tied to the hair.

Since 2005, the ¡Viva Frida! festival has attracted thousands of visitors.

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