Prom Dresses

In any American woman's life, there will be two important dresses. The most important one of these is the wedding dress or bridal gown, and the second is her prom dress. Even if you're not homecoming queen, your prom is still a special and important occasion that is one of the few occasions that an ordinary middle-class girl gets to shine and strut her stuff.

Most girls certainly take their prom dresses seriously, and it's quite common for classes in the days leading up to the senior prom to be rather disrupted by plans for the prom, prom dresses, makeup and hair-dos. Thankfully, by buying prom dresses online, some of the old fuss of taking two or three days off school to hit the shops for fittings, choosing fabric and the like can be avoided. And by buying a good, discount prom dress, a lot of the expense can be avoided ? a real relief for parents who may have to fork out for further education and also for a wedding down the track.

So what are you going to wear to the prom? In many ways, you have even greater choice in prom dresses than you do with wedding dresses ? nobody's going to make any assumptions about your virtue or lack thereof from the colour of your prom dress, but white is worn for weddings to symbolise purity and virtue.

Let's start with the colour of your prom dress. It's best to select a shade that complements the colour of your skin and hair. A good general rule of thumb is if you have reddish or bluish tones to your skin, then you should choose shades that contain blues and reds, while if you have more golden tones to your skin, you should choose yellow-based tones. This doesn't mean that if you love green but have pinkish skin you have to avoid wearing your favourite colour to the prom: it just means that your prom dress should be in a bluer shade of green ? a nice turquoise or eau de nil would be perfect.

When considering the colour and pattern, you should also consider your overall shape and size. If you're a little on the chubbier side and all your efforts to lose weight don't seem to be quick enough, then a darker shade is more slimming ? but don't feel limited to basic black. Dark purple, navy blue, chocolate brown, burgundy and deep forest green are other svelte options.

What about the cut of your prom dress? As with bridal gowns, you should select a prom dress that is cut so that it either reveals or hugs tightly to your better features and skims loosely around the bits you don't want to emphasise. So if you have the pear shape that's typical of the majority of women (in other words, a smaller bust, a small to medium sized waist, and larger hips, buttocks and thighs), then something that is looser around the butt and legs and nipped in around the waist will be flattering ? and you may also want to draw attention to another great feature like dainty ankles, toned arms or statuesque shoulders. However, if you're proud of your generous butt, then show it off with a mermaid cut (tight around the waist and hips, then flared around the hemline) or maybe an eyecatching feature like a bow at the back.