The Lipster

Being a teenager can suck. Or at least it did circa 1995 in a small village in Northumberland, which is why I spent my teenage years up in the North East dreaming of The Prom. An all singing, all dancing, smuggle-a-bottle-of-whiskey-in and get-groped-by-an-ugly-bloke American-style prom with a band, a prom king and queen, jocks and geeks.

All the best films had one: Back To The Future, Grease, Pretty In Pink, Sixteen Candles, Carrie, Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Mean Girls (OK, so this wasn’t out in 1995 but you get the point). And what did we have? A shitting sixth form ball. The poorer, slightly backwards cousin of The Prom, the sixth form ball held nowhere near as much promise, hype, glamour or possibility for stealing the captain of the football team off the school bitch. Which is probably why the world of pop culture has recently become equally as obsessed with The Prom as we are. From hot new band The Teenagers holding an 80s' prom night last week in north London to pop strumpet Ashlee Simpson and Fall Out Boy boyfriend Pete Wentz having a prom-themed birthday party to the all-encompassing brand blanket that is High School Musical (the films feature, of course, a prom), it seems that we can’t get enough of the dance-orientated-teen-fests. But, um, why exactly? Read on for our four favourite things about the world of The Prom…

1 The outfits

Aside from prom dresses now being an entity in their own right, in America, the search for The Dress is akin to buying your first flat/car/third world child. Gossip Girl-style teens scour the latest Teen Vogue prom special for the perfect Miu Miu/Marc/Zac Posen outfit, spending thousands of daddy’s dollars. Makes that Dorothy Perkins taffeta number look a bit shit now, doesn’t it?

2 The possibility

To a lone British teen, the prom is a world of possibility, a fantasy land where anything can and does happen. Happen to be the school geek? No problem – at the prom, you can lose your virginity to the hottest girl in the school. Been bullied all year by the jocks? Don’t worry - you’ll get your revenge at the prom and humiliate them infront of the entire school. At prom, social worlds collide and dreams come true – something that was never likely at the Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form ball.

3 The hype

No other event in your life gets as much build up as the prom. Wedding? Pfft. 21st? Get out of town. Who you’re going to the prom with can change lives, ruin reputations; what you wear will forever be remembered. Entire US websites and magazine are dedicated to the task of finding your perfect prom dress, limos are ordered, days spent in the hairdressers. And, if you’re not into the hype, you can now go against it with your very own ‘antiprom’, an alternative prom organised by the students and favoured by EMOs that like, OMG, totally rebels against the main prom (as seen in Ugly Betty and Dawson’s Creek).

4 The dance-off

Forget bottling someone with a WKD – fighting your enemy to the death in the form of a dance-off will always be the superior option.

Any key prom traits that we've overlooked? Your turn...