Promtacular!

Year: 1989

In the world of lame prom backdrops, this has got to be a top contender. God only knows what that cheap blue curtain is hiding, but I kind of feel like it would have been just as unattractive without the cheap blue curtain.

I also kind of want to hug the sweetly misguided person who thought that taping construction-paper hearts with glitter borders to the curtain would make it better.

It’s not this poor girl’s fault that her dress is practically the same color AND material. I mean, obviously her dress is fancier (what with a stunning assortment of lace, brocade, bows, flowers AND ruffles). But it suffers by the inevitable curtain comparison.

For the record, I’m sorely disappointed she opted for minimal jewelry instead of gigantic teal earrings. She also perfectly dyed her shoes instead of going with eyesore white. Sigh.

Anyway.

Her date has an air of bemusement, which I admire. Like someday he’s going to look back on this photo and say, “Heeeeey.”

It does also look like possibly he had his hair cut 13 seconds before prom began. And, let’s face it: there aren’t a lot of high school boys who can (or want to) pull off a mustache. I think this may actually wins him points.

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Year: Totally Doesn’t Matter.

You know. Once you get past the onslaught of this photo’s amazing Promtacular! explosions, it offers you a secret gift. I almost missed it myself until I tilted my screen just so. Oh, it’s magnificent. But let’s address the obvious first, shall we?

Her dress. Her shiny, lacy, pink Scarlett-O’Hara-meets-State-Fair dress. I don’t even– what IS that material? It is reflecting the camera flash, and not even in a satin-shiny kind of way. More like in a cellophane-shiny kind of way. Which is just utterly amazing. It’s like she wanted to look like cotton candy that she brought back from the State Fair wrapped in cellophane.

And not just cotton candy wrapped in cellophane. Cotton candy covered in a fancy, fancy napkin, wrapped in cellophane. At the State Fair.

Complete with State Fair Hair!

Because, as a gift to me from the Prom Gods, her hair is higher than her face is long. No, no. This is not me being funny. This is actually true. Get out your ruler. Measure from the bottom of her chin to the top of her head. Now measure where her bangs start to the top of her head-cascade. IS THAT NOT IMPRESSIVE?

Oh, and while I’m all-caps-ing at you, may I also ask: WHERE IN GOD’S NAME IS THIS PHOTO TAKEN?

Was their prom in “the study” on the set of the board game Clue?

Was their prom in the office of the University President?

Perhaps their prom was in the Captain’s Quarters of the Titanic?

I just…what?

It makes me feel bad for them — happy as they are — because there isn’t a single tacky streamer or fake flower or floating flower vase or Mardi Gras mask anywhere in sight. You know what there is, though? I’m certain that just off to the side, there’s a globe. And a model ship in a glass case.

Prom in the Hall of Records.

THE SECRET GIFT

Did you guess it? Do you know what it is?

This girl’s date at first looks cute and sweet and a little dorky (entirely the fault of the era-acceptable glasses), until you look closer at his hair line. Not the one along his forehead. The one along the line of OHMYGOD HIS HAIR IS AS HIGH AS HERS!!!

How does that even happen? It’s a Promtacular! miracle!

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Year: Your Guess Is As Good As Mine. Let’s Say 1991.

As I’ve pointed out before, the early 90s was a confused year for hair. Women were gently, slowly moving out of the Decade Of Perms, but not without a good fight. This girl here is Exhibit A in the “But I LIKE Perms” Department of Pre-1995. Her perm is not totally in your face, it’s not 17 miles high off her head, there are no corresponding bangs jutting out into purple-scented Aussie-spritzed waterfalls. The permed beast has been tamed.

Meanwhile our gentleman friend here has the same haircut my boyfriend had. Parted in the middle; longish all around, practically with bangs; but with shaved sides. Because why? Because the “Party in the Back” mullet stylings had become so gauche, I guess, that men decided to kill the party altogether. The only thing to do was to shave the party off. (I can’t explain the middle part/bang situation. Blame “Friends.”)

The thing I like best about this photo, perhaps OBVIOUSLY, is that it is clear this couple dressed to complement the wallpaper. Which is a thing of beauty. Notice how the swirly flower bits of her dress are echoed in the faux gold leafing of the wallpaper! Notice how his rainbow vest picks up the teal and peach in the flowers of the wallpaper border! And that one white-pink bud creeping up from behind the guy’s left shoulder? Is that not the same flower that’s on his date’s wrist?

I do believe it is.

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Year: 1985

Those aren’t their real names, but let’s pretend that they are and you can figure out which is which.

I love this photo. The female half of this couple is the opposite of the tanned, salon-haired, manicured, pair-with-pearls kind of girl we’ve seen a lot of, although she is certainly no stranger to hair product. Perhaps that is why she fits so well with her date — who also hasn’t seen the sun in a few months because his band’s been too busy practicing in his uncle’s garage — who shares her haircare regime.

These kids? They love their metal. I love that both her delicate lace wrap is black, as is his boutonniere. Oh, they will consent to going formal, but they won’t give up their stick-it-to-the-man blackness!

They are to be taken seriously as rockers.

You know. Braces and all.

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Year: 1986

Here is yet an another entirely new look from our 80s prom collection, and it does not disappoint. Whimsical, airy, and adorned with metallic squiggles.

Oh, the 80s squiggles.

I don’t know what else to call them, but those squiggles you see here on Wendy’s bodice were everywhere. You could find metallic squiggles, pastel squiggles, even neon squiggles on everything from shirts to notebooks (Trapper Keepers) to wallpaper to, apparently, prom dresses.

I personally owned a giant white button-down shirt that had neon squiggles faux spray-painted all over it.

Squiggles were taken quite seriously. Here we see that Wendy’s squiggles inspired an entire metallic theme, right down to her shoes.

Ultimately, she and her date look like they were going to compete on Star Search.

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