May 12th aka The Prom Dress Revisited

So bear with me...as I go back in time to my first prom dress.

My first prom invitation came when I was 14. This created a big "I-have-nothing-to-wear" crisis around the house (thinking about it, it probably was an every day occurence) and I lived 500 miles away from ANY civilisation, Montreal, "where everyone is, no doubt, stylish and fashionable as it IS the center of the world", an idea debunked in about 5 seconds when I went to Concordia U which was full of people from Ontario wearing Sears mail-order polyester (another pre-conceived idea of mine, but not so far from the truth as they wore a poly/cotton blend ordered from Eaton's).

My very wise Mom did the sensible thing and sent me to the family's dressmaker (I was sewing already but not that well!). She'd already made this beauty for me, so there was trust between us : 

I chose Butterick 4043, a black and white cotton print and having no breast to speak of, the impending slipping dress during the slow song crisis (Aerosmith's Dream On, probably) was averted by putting in straps, forgetting about the whole wrap around idea and inserting a back zipper. Retrospectivly, you can only nod in agreement as dancing a slow still means I have to raise my arms to reach anyone's shoulders and it would have had a very unwanted effect. 

The only remaining evidence of the existence of this dress is in this picture. This is my best friend Hélène, with her 'beau Denis', who had nothing to wear and avoided a major crisis the year after.

My second prom dress was a red hawaïan dress with a surfer print refashion, in 1979!