Two Patterns, Nine Days

The time....9 days.

The goal...2 formal evening gowns.

My daughter can be egocentric, moody, shallow....in short, she is a teenager....at 17, teetering on the brink between a dependent child and a fully realized adult....a mercurial teeter-totter swinging swiftly one way and then the other without apparent provocation or reason. Just when I am sure I have failed completely as a parent, I discover a formerly unknown to me admirable quality in her.

Today I discovered she is a true friend, putting her own needs and vanity aside for another. Attending an affluent, label concious high school, the winter formal is more akin to an after the Oscars party than a dance in the school gym. The girls shop designer salons and department stores in Los Angeles and New York for that perfect one-of-a-kind evening gown. In her senior year the pressure is even greater. A divorce and the work lay-off of the custodial parent has caused one of my daughter's friends to be excluded from the "dress process". Most are unaware of her family's severe financial difficulties and she is too proud to accept charity. How to include her in the festivities while allowing her to save face? My daughter came up with the brilliant suggestion that I sew evening gowns for both of them!

Now, I have barely sewn more than a hem for the last few years, and I can't remember the last time I put in a zipper, let alone lined a dress, but....here I am...two patterns and a trip to a scary discount fabric store later....and we are in the haute couture business! My daughter will have an outrageous over-the-top Pretty In Pink Molly Ringwold kind of gown, her friend will be channeling a classy Audrey Hepburn in a form-fitting one shouldered slit cut up to there dress. At least that is the plan. They will either look fantastic or like two teen girls in home-made formal gowns. Either way, no one is excluded, no one girl will be singled out from the pack.

On the drive home after dropping the friend off this evening my daughter acknowledged that her dress is not what she had envisioned when she fantasized about her senior formal dance, but in the end it didn't really matter. Her boyfriend could care less about the dress, her good friends (wearing their designer gowns) will still enjoy her company, all of her friends and their dates will come to our house for dinner before the dance, she will have fun and dance and laugh and take a thousand pictures. And to me, she will be the most magnificent young woman of the evening. Not thanks to a designer dress, but by virtue of the radiant person within.