Sabine Ganezer
As I watched my peak reproductive years wither and dissolve in isolation, it began to occur to me that all those fussy older women in my family were right (sort of) about one thing after all: I didn't appreciate how not-entirely-repulsive I was as a teen, I didn't take the time to enjoy my body and dare I say my (gag) looks (gag again) while I had them. Since I'm still 23 here in late summer of 2020, it's not entirely un-parsimonious to postulate that what I look like now might actually look like a dream when I look back on the rare photo of myself ten years from now.
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One of the things that started itching at me as the lucky high school seniors of the Covid year got ready for their castrated Zoom prom replacement injection, was that I could have gone to my own prom 5 years ago. I could have gone with my girlfriends, who invited me along with them, even though we weren't that close. I also could have gone with the nice Jewish boy who asked me, even though I only wanted to be friends with him. It might have been worth it, says the tugging obnoxious voice in my head, just to get to feel like a princess for one night, to get to splurge on a ball gown and do your makeup and hair and feel beautiful and popular and wanted and hell, maybe even dance or something.
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Now I know, in reality, I would have been miserable at prom at 18 and I would be miserable now. Everyone says how the movies romanticize it but it's really awkward in real life, it's not worth spending all the money, no one really dances, and if you're not romantically attracted to your date, you're doomed to a night of wallflower-hood. Still, I found a fun way of coping with my quarter-life-crisis regrets was to draw myself a prom-ish dress I might wear now, if I were going to some sort of analogous occasion appropriate for 23-year-olds in some alternate universe where Covid-19 wasn't a problem. The above image is what I eventually came up with for myself, after a series of more-or-less complete sketches of dresses, some of which were more general ball gown ideas and not so much for me specifically. I was proud of some of my sketches anyway, so I'll show them below.
My first try -- so weird I gave up on it. Front view (left) and side view (right); I didn't make it to the back view because the dress was already flaunting the laws of physics, and not in a good way imo.
I was encouraged by this lucky strike: the nature-inspired look with a spiderweb laceback, complete with dewdrop beads, intrigued me. However, green is not really my color, so I made up another girl (at least, the head of one) to model this dress to its best advantage.
Blue is my color, but the blue of this dress seems too militant for a ball gown. So I left it to a redhead with cowgirl boots. She can pull it off.
Watching 2000s cartoon shows like "My Life as a Teenage Robot" and "Danny Phantom," got me excited about the retro style both of those shows embrace, to different extents. I was fantasizing about a new school of old-school courtship, something where I could express my quirks and also feel included as a carefree girl on a date at the shake shop or what have you.
This one is much closer to my ideal prom-like dress for myself to actually wear: the nautical/ sea life/ tropical island themes have interested me since I got obsessed with pirates and mermaids in high school. Still, the color is a little off for my skin tone, so I gave it a hairstyle (a suggestion of its forever home) and moved on.
Based on the salmon-pink affair, I tried out some other ocean-themed concepts (see below):
I'm lukewarm about this one, and that's no way to be about one's dream dress. So it went in the reject pile too.
This was the closest to my dream dress before creating the final version (see top of page or below). The color would be good with my skin tone, the seashell motif on the bodice expresses my ocean interests, the sash-y thingies and vine-y threads criss-crossing the skirt create playful shapes and I loved how unique and specific it was. I got a little carried away coloring the flowers though... perhaps the oranges and yellows take away from the blueness and overall coherence of the dress. Something just was not quite perfect, at least not for this particular project. But I'll keep this dress in my imaginary closet for another imaginary Cinderella story.
Final design -- and yes, the person wearing it is supposed to look like me, though slightly cuter since she's a cartoon. Like the engraved class ring Danny gives Sam in "Danny Phantom," I drew an engraved ring with my name on the inside and some generic love message. Of course, if I ever met anyone who really loved me, the love message inside the ring would be quirky and weird. Until that happens, though, that's all, folks!