Lock up your daughters, Prom is coming!

I wrote the body of this post before I saw A Dress A Day’s October 15 post about this vintage pattern. Erin thinks the pattern would make up into a great prom dress, and she suggests yellow organza as the material for the full-skirted version. Ah, yellow organza is so young, so fresh, so innocent, oh so Sandra Dee in this Britney Spears world. Erin has great taste, but she obviously hasn’t been looking at what’s being sold as prom dresses right now . . .

Sometimes when I see a cute dress that’s too young for me I wish I had a daughter to buy it for, even though I’m well aware that mothers and daughters don’t often agree on what’s cute. Other times I’ll see a garment intended for a young woman that’s so atrocious I’m relieved I don’t have a daughter because I know that if I, the Mom, hate the item, she, the contrary teenaged daughter (with an unfortunate inherited tendency toward bad shopping judgment) would love it. The dress would then be the cause of one of those character-building disagreements between mother and daughter.

Take, for example, this purported prom dress. Right now it’s featured front and center in the junior department of the Reno Dillard’s. (Note that the woman modeling this dress appears to be about 35. It’s probably illegal to disseminate pictures of a girl under 17 years of age wearing the thing.)

In real life this schmatta is so tacky, so sleazy, so cheesy that I actually stopped mid-stride when I saw it, like Lot's wife turned to a pillar of salt by the horrible sight.

Among its other faults, the dress resuscitates everything bad in ‘80s fashion, i.e., ruffles, ruching, shine, a tail, and that damn bright royal blue. I hate that shade of blue; I’m sure it’s the color a person would see if she were gazing skyward when a gamma ray burst hit the Earth, just before her brain melted and she crumbled into dust. Oh, lordy, then there’s that slit. What the hell is the theme of this prom? Enchanted Nights at the Mustang Ranch?

To my surprise, Jessica McClintock put her name to this mess, er, dress. Aged crone that I am, I mostly remember Jessica McClintock as the designer of Gunne Sax’s neo-Amish outfits in the 1970s, like this one for sale at Blacklight Vintage Clothing.

From burhka to brothel in 30 years; that’s progress for ya!

The other prom dresses on sale weren’t much more presentable. Obviously the days when a gown had to pass a pre-prom inspection by Sister Charles Bronson are gone forever.