140 artists built a 109-foot skeleton in a purple gown

A 109-foot skeleton in a purple gown stood in Mexico City's main square this month, setting a Guinness World Record for the tallest Day of the Dead figure. Known as La Catrina, she rose roughly as high as an 11-story building, breaking the previous 92-foot record set in Puerto Vallarta in 2023. More than 140 people from the Xibalbá art workshop, led by director Carlos Camilo Báez, built her from steel, fiberglass and papier-mache, including an 88-foot dress. At her base sat a memorial altar of an estimated 70,000 marigold plants, grown in the city's Xochimilco borough. The figure dates to 1912, when cartoonist Jose Guadalupe Posada drew her as a penny broadside sold to the working class. He never expected her to become famous. She was supposed to be a joke. Mayor Clara Brugada had planned to take the installation down on November 2, then quietly extended the viewing through November 11.