- I don't think that boobs need to be fuzzy, per se.
(upbeat music)
- Prom means to me underage drinking,
pictures that you're gonna wanna burn.
- Prom means sweaty hormones.
- Sean Paul's Temperature.
- Prom is such a weird time.
- Grinding.
- For everybody.
- You think it's, like, so important,
and then, like, a few years later,
you like, "That wasn't shit."
- This was the big show and you better be ready
to go big or go home.
- So, if I had to describe my prom look from head to toe.
Wait.
I'm reliving the trauma.
Give me a second.
But I knew, like, "Okay, this Kelly Rowland inspired look."
Something in that vein is what I was going for.
I don't know what sis did to my hair,
but like, it did not translate.
Like the Usher, who like, you know her potato salad good,
you know her pound cake poppin',
but she not necessarily your fashion go-to.
- So my mom gave me a budget.
I think I was waitressing at Applebees for like,
literally a week.
And then I was like, this is too much work. I can't do this.
I had a little money saved up from that,
and then my mom also gave me a little budget.
She was like, you can't spend more than $150, or like, $100.
And I was like, okay, well that's gonna be hard.
I wanted the How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days dress,
but in red, because red is one of my favorite colors.
So I went to Macy's one day
and I went in the clearance section
and they had this beautiful red dress.
It's just the back wasn't what I wanted
and it was also like, four sizes bigger.
But I was like, you know what, we can work with this.
I grabbed it, I took it to a tailor.
It was already open back, but they just made it like, lower.
And I don't know why my mother was like,
Yeah, sure, you can do that.
I think I spent $75 all-in-all.
And I liked it.
I still like it.
- If you had to picture like, the high schools you see on TV
that you don't think like, oh, no high school's
actually like this, with like football jocks,
and like prom queen, and you're like, oh,
doing anything else other than football's weird.
But that was my high school.
I had it in my head that this was my chance.
Like, I was never gonna be able to wear a prom dress again.
And this was my last chance, and I wanted it to be as big
and pink and poofy and insane as possible.
And boy, did I deliver.
My dress was so wide, I could not fit into my car.
We had to borrow my dad's car,
and my date had to stuff me inside of it
and fold me up like a little Hot Pocket.
The boobs were fuzzy, weirdly.
Like, I looked like a fembot from Austin Powers
with like pink fuzzy boobs.
It was covered in sequins.
And I vividly remember taking it home and going,
you know what, this baby doesn't shine enough.
Made my mom put more sequins on it.
We amped up the sequins on it
because it was too plain.
Keep in mind, I looked like Cinderella had thrown up on me.
So we did like a tasteful rhinestone headband
which as you can probably see is just a turned down tiara.
Don't let not having a prom queen stop you
from crowning yourself prom queen.
We also all got eyelash extensions
and my best friend got glue dropped on her eye
and he had to wear an eye patch to prom.
That's real.
If I had to describe my prom look, I would say it
was a floor-length
silky dress that was like,
spaghetti strap, purple, kind of like wavy things,
and then like a splash of tiger orange and black stripes.
And then a splash of zebra stripes as well.
Almost the texture of like a Windows Desktop background
like on the dress.
And so it was just all,
all in there.
I had my mom's dear, dear, dear friend
make me a flower accessory,
and she literally made like this big,
like this size flower.
And she used fabric that matched the dress
and then beading that matched the dress,
so in the flower it was like,
black, white, zebra, tiger, purple.
And I just kinda like
tucked it right there above my ear.
You know, it was like a little matchy matchy.
But as a wee teen, I was convinced that this
tiger flower was gonna be the thing
that would really pull my look together.
The thing I regret most from prom is definitely my outfit.
People at the time thought my look was fun.
We all had a good laugh about it.
I don't remember whether my date felt the same way.
I had black Converse sneakers with black dress pants
that were far too large for me.
I had a navy blue black jacket that was also too large
and under that I had a bright red tux shirt
with red suspenders, a black Cumberbund, and a black tie.
And the cherry on top was a red velvet fedora
with a leopard print band around the top.
I still have the hat.
I like to keep it around.
I wasn't working here very long before my coworkers found
my old prom photos on Facebook, and so,
they turned me into a meme pretty quickly.
I think at the end of the day,
you should go to prom in whatever you want to.
As long as you are comfortable and you have fun,
you shouldn't care about looking a little goofy.
I stand by the fedora.
(upbeat music)