The Piedmont Highlander

The Student News Site of Piedmont High School

The Piedmont Highlander

The Piedmont Highlander

March Crossword Key
March 6, 2024

The senior voice: Calm down about prom dresses

The+senior+voice%3A+Calm+down+about+prom+dresses

photo-1 copyCreated March 7 at 9:23 pm. That’s about 2 months, or 10 weeks, or 65 days, or 1,560 hours, or 93,600 minutes, or even 5,616,000 seconds until Senior Ball. That’s when the “PROM Dresses” group was created this year.

The point of the Facebook group is so girls can post a picture of the dress that they have bought, so other girls will not buy the same one. It’s basically an elaborate way to call dibs on an outfit.

The fact that the group was created so early is completely overkill. Since most people go to the same stores to buy a dress, it suddenly becomes a race to find a cute long dress, which are surprisingly hard to come by when you start looking. I was prompted to get a dress so ridiculously early just because the group stressed me out too much. I wanted to have a dress and be done with it. I posed a picture when I got a dress just like everyone else, but when I really think about it, seriously, how much does wearing the same dress as someone even matter?

You take pictures with your friends who probably won’t have the same dress because you’ve all been asking each other “should I get the strapless with the pink or the green with the lace?” and displaying mirror selfies of you in the dress. The only result of someone wearing the same dress as you is that you show up at the Fox, you see someone in the same dress, you two laugh a little awkwardly, and take a picture together. And look, it’s totally fine! This group is not made for Winter Ball and people show up with the same dress and the world survives. What is it about girls needing to claim their territory? What if the guys had a group where they all posted their tuxedoes staking claim on different styles? It would be absurd.

Besides there’s no PHS People magazine where the population can vote on who wore it better. It’s not like your date is even going to notice someone is wearing the same dress. Which brings up the point that no one even has a date 2 months before prom. It makes girls freak out unnecessarily early about who they will go with. Even if you have a boyfriend, you don’t know what’s going to happen two months from now. Although people are going to end up going regardless of whether they get asked, it starts the drama too far in advance

[Also why do girls feel the need to post multiple dresses. Just wait till you actually buy one. I know it’s nerve racking but its annoying to claim like 5 different dresses.]

I do get the point of the group though. I recognize that if you put in time trying to find a dress you love, and then spend a decent amount of money on that dress, it makes it feel like “your” dress. Even though the dress was created for the mass market and there are thousands of them, girls feel like they have a claim over it and they would feel a little bit cheated and disappointed if someone else showed up in the same one. It does not make your dress any less special, just a little more common

Making sure you have a unique prom dress is fine, but the worst part of the group being made prematurely is the result the group creates. As soon as it was made, prom became the main subject on girls mind. Although it was a nice hiatus from the college acceptance/rejection rants, discussing a dress that you will wear over two months from now gets old fast. The senior girls really don’t need to be obsessing about a dance so long in advance. It just makes people raise their expectations so ridiculously high that they cannot help but be let down.

I think this is the biggest problem that the group creates. It beings the suspense for a dance so early and the suspense keeps building and building. I’ve heard over and over again from older grades that they did not have a good time simply because they expected it to be something amazing, something that in reality is unattainable. Movies, TV, books and everything else under the sun make it out to be like the Olympics of high school, the pinnacle of your year. If we take away these expectations, I think our grade can just chill out, have a great night, and enjoy one of our last events together. And if someone is wearing the same dress as you, who cares?

Leave a Comment
Donate to The Piedmont Highlander

Your donation will support the student journalists of Piedmont High School. Your contribution will allow us to purchase equipment and cover our annual website hosting costs.

More to Discover
Donate to The Piedmont Highlander

Comments (0)

All The Piedmont Highlander Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *