Profiles · The Mask Trade
The Man Behind The Silver Was Nobody, And That Was The Point
For forty years the laces never came off. We went looking for what the mask was actually protecting — and found it wasn't a face.
I spent two weeks last winter in a workshop three blocks from the coliseum, watching an old seamstress stitch silver lamé over a wooden head form. She had made masks for forty years and could name every wrestler by the curve of their brow. None of them, she told me, ever wanted a mirror in the room.
A Face Is A Liability In The Ring
The laced silver-and-blue mask was never costume. It was the contract. The night a luchador signed his first card, the promoter handed him a name and a face that belonged to the gate, not the man. Lose your mask in a bout and you lose the whole arrangement — that is why a máscara contra máscara match in 1962 could empty a bank account before the bell.