From Prim to Promzillas

Dear High School Girl,Congratulations. It is prom season and you are going to one. Have fun, don’t drink, and please don’t do the one, other prom-night thing that can lead to a lifetime of misery: don’t try to be a movie star.Oh I know you’re going to anyway. You’re going to devote yourself (and your mother) to finding the perfect dress, shoes, bag, and bling, no matter the cost. Then you are going to get plucked and powdered and primped and possibly even waxed by professional hairdressers, manicurists, makeup artists, and estheticians, just like Angelina Jolie. All of which would be fine except for one thing.You’re not Angelina Jolie! You’re not even one of her million kids! You’re a high school senior!Who decided prom is no fun unless you indulge in the kind of super-pampering once reserved for royal brides or the ladies up for Best Actress? The idea that you could borrow your mom’s purse or apply your own eyeshadow sounded laughable to most of the girls I spoke to. That’s for kids! Or, as high school senior Vivienne Barlow put it: she could do her makeup herself, “But I really wanted to have someone else do it for me.”Prom is not about a dance anymore. It’s not even about playing dress-up. It’s not even about sex. It’s about the chance to be the one thing our culture values: a celebrity.“You do not want to go to prom with a dress that another girl has on,” a senior at Frederick Douglass Academy, Jalea Moses, said. “The prom is a special night that is not going to happen again and if you see someone with your dress on you’re going to be upset because it takes away from your individuality.”Now, naturally, we know that it is disastrous to be wearing the same dress as another girl. Shows like “My Super Sweet 16” have turned the party dress hunt into a holy pilgrimage. But why are girls talking about the specter of same-gown shame as if they’re being stalked by TMZ? Do their dates — unlike any other men in the history of the universe — really care about what outfit they’re wearing? Is Mr. Blackwell really going to cross them off his best-dressed list? Is People magazine planning a cover story? And yet —“My cousin came all the way up from Virginia just to buy a dress no one else in her high school would be wearing,” a New York publicist, Catherine McManus, said. The cousin chose one dress from Bloomingdale’s, and one from Lord & Taylor. Then, Ms. McManus said, “They were calling Lord & Taylor and Bloomie’s stores in Virginia to make sure those stores didn’t carry those dresses.” Each cost over $400.Meantime, my friend’s daughter is going to a fifth grade prom and the mother of a classmate called her up to yell: “I hear your daughter is wearing the same dress as mine. Change it!”The fashion biz is delighted by this one-upswomanship. “The 2008 issue of Seventeen Prom has 437 pages,” the former editor of that guide, Melissa Walker, said. The magazine looks exactly like a teenage version of those bible-thick bridal guides, from the ads to the articles. “Some features [are] pretty standard now like, ‘How To Get The Right Bra for Your Prom Dress,'” Ms. Walker said. “At my prom in the ’90s, I don’t think I picked out a special bra.” Now girls do. (Ka-ching.)Even more popular, she added, is the section on the gowns that Hollywood stars are wearing, and where to find prom dresses just like them. (Ka-ching.)Ann Barlow, Vivienne’s mom, took her prom shopping. “She was trying on different things and my husband was outside and I walked out of the dressing room and said, ‘Ahem. Betsey’s not so cheap.'” That’s Betsey as in famous New York designer Betsey Johnson. “My husband said, ‘How much?’ and I said, ‘Oh, $400,’ and his eyes almost bugged out of his head. But then my daughter came out and it was a very pretty black and white dress and he said, ‘Okay.'”All parents seem to be saying okay. Jalea Moses spent $200 on her dress. So did her sister, Janee, who says most of her girlfriends — she’s from Bed Stuy, Brooklyn — spent more. And then there were the shoes: Janee’s were $200. As for the special handbag and hairdo and jewelry, Janee’s godmother pitched in for all that. All told, the evening cost more than $600, including the limo (because who takes a plain old car?) and prom tickets. Tickets to the after party — and a different dress and different shoes — and the after-after party (a cruise!) were not included.“Everything has gotten a lot fancier in the last five years,” the head of Gourmet Advisory Services, Harriette Rose Katz, said. Her firm works on bar mitzvahs and weddings, ever escalating in glamour, and proms are simply the next frontier. But I’ve got a simple solution.Promiforms.You know — prom uniforms. Have all the boys dress in blue suits. Have all the girls wear the same dress. Or go the Hogwarts route and have them all wear wizard gowns.Goodbye, promzillas! See you again when you marry a prince.Or Brad, on the rebound.lskenazy@yahoo.com

From Prim to Promzillas

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