If you’re reading this, you either know exactly what I’m referring to when I say “Azalea Trail Maids” because you’re from Mobile, Alabama, or you saw this picture above of a girl in big, ruffled dress and thought to yourself, “What the heck is that?” Yeah, Mobile is an interesting city with a lot of peculiar sites and traditions. However, the Mobile Azalea Trail Maids are a different kind of treasure.

Okay, so here’s a little background information. The Azalea Trail Maids consist of 50 senior girls who attend high school in the Mobile County area. There are five colors of dresses: blue, yellow, peach, lavender, and green. The pastel colors represent the Spring in which Mobile is considered its most beautiful due to the blooming Azalea flowers found all around the city. There is also one pink colored dress that indicates the queen of the Azalea Trail Maids. The girls are selected through two rounds of interviews that take place during their junior year in which the applicants are asked numerous questions about the history of Mobile, national current events, personality questions, etc.

Maybe we should address what every person is thinking when they see a Trail Maid: those dresses. At first glance, the girls wearing the dresses look like giant cupcakes walking. However, each dress has a lot of significance. The style of the dress is based off of the Southern antebellum attire that women wore (think Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With The Wind). The ruffles and frills are incorporated in the dresses to resemble the Azalea flowers that bloom in the springtime. In total, the dress consists of nine separate pieces including a hoop skirt, a parasol (which is a fancy word for a sun umbrella), and even pantaloons. Each dress is designed differently by the girl who wears it. There are dressmakers in Mobile who work tirelessly to help design and create these dresses in the ways that the girls imagine them. Each dress is very elaborate and boy-oh-boy are they heavy!

The Azalea Trail Maids serve as ambassadors to the city of Mobile and groups of them are requested to make appearances all over the city on a nearly weekly basis. Most often Trail Maids are called on for photo opportunities with admiring bystanders but they can also be used as information sources due to their vast knowledge of Mobile’s culture. Azalea Trail Maids are also invited to walk in the Annual Chicago Thanksgiving Day Parade every year as well as the Disney Easter Parade in Orlando, Florida. The group is even featured in the Senior Bowl each year which takes place in Mobile.

Azalea Trail Maids might initially look like an unusual site to someone who has never heard of them before. However, the girls hidden under all those ruffles take great pride in their titles as well as their dresses. Each girl is a very bright, outstanding young woman who represents the city with great honor, integrity, and poise.