Spring couture-inspired prom dresses

MANILA, Philippines - Peer pressure, delinquent hormones and ill-fitting Bee Dees can lead to clouded judgment. You are most volatile on the days leading to prom night, when your brain is juggling dating, dressing and parental woes while willing that giant zit to remain under the radar. I wish I knew what that must’ve been like –– all my prom knowledge is from the swoon-fest that is 10 Things I Hate About You, and the very comprehensive Not Another Teen Movie. But if there was a ball of sorts for people who regret not going to what many coming-of-age film touts as “the biggest night of a teenager’s life,” I would so go, if only for the dress code.

For our high school dance, I wore a yellow cheongsam-style stop and white slacks. Slacks! On the one day that we didn’t need to wear a uniform, I choose to wear something that someone else would wear as a uniform. It was the closest that I had gotten to a proper prom and I would forever remember it as the night I danced on a ledge to “rave” songs I didn’t even get (what, no lyrics?) and sweated in a silk blouse I didn’t even like.

See kids, we had no idea of what was going on in fashion around the world back then. Newspapers didn’t feature much fashion. Magazines were expensive and at the tender age of 16, Teen Beat was the only title worth saving for. All we knew about clothes, we got from what we saw on our classmates –– classmates who either wore elephant pants and baseball caps, or, at the other end of high school’s social spectrum, tube tops held up by next to nothing. After Halloween, it seems prom is the next best excuse to dress scantily, but you must resist! Step away from the bandage dress and take a cue from Fashion Week’s latest hits. Spring couture 2013 runways were abundant with nods to prom fashion –– all micro-societies at the high school cafeteria represented.