Prom season is open season

I turn antsy each time February rolls around, not so much because it’s Valentine month but more because it starts a two-month parade of prom nights and graduation balls. And it is during these times that I can really feel my age. Seeing all these 16-year-old girls tottering awkwardly on heels and making the most of gowns that weigh down their small, pubescent frames just makes me weep with recollection. I was that girl years and years ago (I stopped counting after the 10th year anniversary of my own prom night), only I wasn’t wearing a voluminous knock-off of a red-carpet ensemble worn by a Hollywood A-lister. Rather, I asked my mom’s modista to make me a crinkled off-shoulder minidress that looked like something out of a ‘90s trailer trash wedding entourage. Yes, it was that short. And maybe that tacky as well. And, it was in ecru too. (All I lacked was the fern bouquet and the cobra ‘do and I could have been written in as a child-bride character in My Name is Earl). But I loved it. Not because it showed off my gangly 14-year-old limbs but because it was a dress that didn’t give a damn.

It wasn’t in my personality at that time to wear flowing crepe gowns with low backs and satiny details. Actually, I don’t really remember what exactly was in my personality at that time, but the dress could very well have spelled it out. It was me. Not some cookie-cutter Uma Thurman wannabe (she was big at that time). And, I’d like to think, it was different.

So if any girl wants to make prom night memorable, she shouldn’t rely on a cute date or any illusions of American Pie-style after-parties to make it so. After all, it’s the dress that people check out first on Facebook. If you’ve always visualized prom as the high school Oscars, then go ahead and prettify in an ethereal, floor-sweeping chiffon off-shoulder dress. Just bear in mind that choices don’t start and end with something that looks suspiciously like Kate Beckinsale’s ruffly serpentina in this year’s Golden Globes. But if you have the Carmen Electra syndrome and think that a traditionally dressy affair can be hacked in a pantsuit and a leather jacket (her attire of choice when she married Dennis Rodman), then don’t even think twice about donning an androgynous look. Prom night is no reason to leave the pants to the men. Or if Belgian deconstructionist Ann Demeulemeester is your personal goddess, then go ahead and wear a dress that starts on a drapery and ends everywhere and nowhere. Try the Filipiniana tactic also — butterfly sleeves aren’t necessary; even native fabric will do, wonderfully.

So maybe unconventional prom dresses haven’t been all that successful, especially if you rely on the track record of Hollywood prom movies (Romy and Michelle’s High School Reunion, Pretty in Pink). But if there’s anything Hollywood can teach us, there’s always a happy ending in the end. In this case, a prom night and prom dress that you, and everybody else, will never forget — even if it causes a fit of hysteria 15 years down the line.