Prom time!

Well, actually here in Canada we say Grad time!  Where I live we don't have prom but from all of the teen movies I've seen, I'd say it's pretty much the same thing and it's getting to be that time of year already.

At the high school that I went to the major event of the day (aside from the huge party after everything's done) is something called the Grand March.  This is after everyone's received their diploma's and the dinner is done.  After that everyone goes back to the school and gets into a ginormous line-up and parades their pretty dresses and tuxes for all to see, often to the tune of some poor bagpipe player (my grad class was over 300 people, can you imagine blowing on your bagpipes for that whole thing?!?!?).

Anyway, the girl's dresses were obviously the main attraction of the evening.  While many of the girls in my grad class spent hundreds of dollars on flamboyant gowns that they couldn't possibly ever wear anywhere ever again, I got my mom to make mine.

To prepare you for what I'm about to show you I have to preface this with the fact that I graduated quite some time ago.  As in, before the birth of things like the Internet, cell phones, and SUV's.  I'm not sure I can bring myself to admit the year out loud so I'll just show you what was going on that year:

Little did we know that these guys were just before their time.
Lip synching seems to be the norm now.



The Berlin Wall was still up.

 

Field of Dreams was a major box office hit.

                            

Big hair was very "in" for both men and women.

OK, now that you're prepared....here's the pattern that we used:



Vogue 1471

 Peach was my favourite colour back then (and quite possibly still is today), so my mom and I picked out an affordable peach moire taffeta and some pretty lace for the train.  She altered the neckline for more of a sweetheart effect and if I'm not mistaken I think she shortened the train.


Ah, to be young and naive again~

Believe it or not, at that time this dress was considered very simple.  Most girls had huge bustles with loads and loads of lace and bows.

And, just to entertain you, and to torture myself, I tried to fit myself into my grad dress.  My friend thinks I'm funny but this isn't the first time I've done this.  Usually it's nice to know that it still fits.  This time it was a little tighter than usual though...time to pull out the pilates dvd's again~

I'm not sure I could sit down comfortably in it but it still fits!!!!!!

My mom did lots of sewing for me growing up but at the time this was a pretty major project for her.  I think she did an amazing job.  And I was most likely a very self obsessed teenager who never properly thanked her so...Thank you mommy! for making me the prettiest dress I'll ever own.

What did your grad/prom dress look like?  Has it come back in fashion yet?  Leave a comment and share.