A Mommy Story

When going to a party, there’s always that fear in the back of your mind that you might run into another woman at the party wearing the exact. same. dress. And it’s even worse if she looks better in the dress than you do, right?

OK, truthfully, I probably wouldn’t care. I’ve never been much of a slave to fashion myself. Except for prom in high school. When it came to my prom, I wanted to have the best dress out there. I remember buying Your Prom magazine and clipping out pictures of dresses I liked, scrutinizing the features of each dress, considering which dresses would look best on my figure and so on. It was the one time in my life when you could officially call me “girly”.

For the 1993 prom, I picked the perfect dress. We were still in the final few years of the Southern belle style gowns in the Midwest, before slim-line dresses would become the prom gold standard, and when I saw this dress I knew it was for me. Off the shoulder to show off my upper half, full skirt to hide my lower half, and in my perfect color: royal blue. Plus let’s not forget the lace and tulle.

While the dress was nearly impossible to fold into my date’s car, I felt like a princess. And thankfully, when I walked in I was relieved to see no one else was wearing my dress. (Although two other girls were wearing a dress in the same style, different color, and gave each other the evil eye all night for it).

So you can imagine my surprise when, 15 years after the prom, I see my dress on someone else while surfing through my Bloglines! It would seem that the dress was also perfect for T With Honey. Proof? OK, click the link and take a look at that dress. Yes, she had it pulled up to show off her awesome lace ankle boots, but you can get the general idea.

And now, me in the dress:

See? Same dress. And my 31 year-old self LOVES that I wasn’t the only one who wore that dress to prom. That dress meant so much to me – I put so much of my self-worth into that dress. How I looked in my prom dress would determine my entire prom night, which would determine how my high school experience would be capped. It’s crazy to think I put so much importance on a dress, but oh how I loved it.

I’m not sure what happened to my prom dress. It hung in my room, plastic dry-cleaning bag still covering it, until I graduated from college. At that point my mom moved, and many of my things were boxed up or discarded. I think I told her to get rid of the dress, and that’s probably for the best. I’d be happy to see one of my daughters wear my wedding dress, but I’d rather they stay far away from that mess of satin, lace and tulle. I don’t think it’ll come back in style during this century.

Anyone else want to show off their totally cool prom dresses? Or even better, prom hair? You can’t see all the curls well in that picture, but I can assure you that it took over three hours and a gazillion bobby pins to pull off that hair sculpture. If someone else posts their prom hair, maybe I’ll dig out a close-up of mine to show off.