Remember all: Girls about their graduation dresses
The most long-awaited time has begun in Russia for schoolchildren: now “last calls” are rattling in schools, and official school proms will be held in mid-June. Someone later remembers his prom as a bad dream, someone as the first serious party with a dress code, someone does not remember anything. In the photo after years you look with a combination of horror and delight: after all, the ideas about the parade form in 16-17 years are very specific. We asked the girls to get the skeletons out of the closet and tell how they and their classmates were dressing up for graduation from the mid-90s to our days.
Anna Bichevskaya
co-founder Stay Hungry and editor in chief iknow.travel
1995
I waited for graduation a year, that is, on September 1, we started discussing with a friend how to hold it. He passed in two parts. The ceremonial part was in the Kaliningrad puppet theater, in the building of the former German "church": each class made its skit and congratulated teachers and classmates. Everybody was present: teachers, parents, brothers, sisters, friends. Then there was an evening program at school, all the girls were in evening dresses, the guys were in suits. Dresses were both purchased and sewn to order. Most of them, of course, were dominated by pastel colors, ruffles, ruffles, lurex, strange compound hairstyles, and glitter nails. In short, the more brilliant, the richer and better. Really worthwhile things, which, probably, would not be ashamed to wear today, came across, but rarely.
My dress was custom-made, like most of my things of that time. I had my own cool dressmaker and unlimited possibilities for choosing a fabric (thanks to my grandmother’s connections), and this gave me room for self-expression. I remember that having a dressmaker then was a prerequisite if you want to look interesting and individual: finding something cool in stores was a super-complex task. Why exactly? Honestly, I don’t remember, it seems to me that I looked at something in a magazine and finalized the idea myself. I used the services of tailors sometime before 2006, the same dressmaker sewed me a wedding dress in the style of Natasha Rostova, then there was a long break and now it’s ripe again for individual tailoring. Both dresses, by the way, are still alive, they feel great and fit me.
At school, at a gala dinner, everyone grandly sat at large tables and for the first time in their life they drank openly with adults. Many of them, of course, used to get used to it, of course, got a good pick; for example, after graduation, I can't drink red champagne anymore. In general, everyone drank, ate, danced, and then everyone on the big buses went to the sea to meet the dawn. It was the most anticipated event in my life that flew very quickly. I still remember this feeling.
Olga Strakhovskaya
Wonderzine editor in chief
1995
It seemed to me that I remember my graduation ceremony quite distinctly and there was nothing outstanding about it - until I saw my school photo album. In general, it is clear why my mind tried to supplant this information. Disco with topless guys (99% of them I saw in the photos, I feel for the first time in my life and have no idea what their name was - we had only four boys in the class), obviously drunken parents and teachers, drunk game in “Stream "in the middle of the assembly hall and absolutely terrible after-party with torn pantyhose from one of my classmates at home, where I have never been before or after.
My mother and I bought my dress in a shop on the Old Arbat, the name of which my memory did not preserve either. There is a suspicion that this is the same, where Anya Dyer bought her own dress. The dress was, in my opinion, very cool - small, black, corrugated chiffon tiers, under the "roaring 20s." Thanks to this, it didn’t carry any bright signs of time, and if it was kept by mom (and mom, as you know, such things are not thrown out), then I will definitely find it and wear it again. At the graduation day, black lacquer sandals were attached to it, of course, put on shiny translucent black tights, as well as styling with "snot", on which I spent a weighty handful of Polish gel with the effect of wet hair. I still remember that he was a bright blue color and he was dying his hair to death. Actually, looking at the photo album, I realized that most of the outfits of my classmates would look great and now - everyone looked like from the best clips of the 90s.
Anna Dyer
director of editorial bureau txt
1998
On Old Arbat there was a Nature store, which my young man called "Natuye." My mother and I went to get a dress there: in 1998, everything seemed very fashionable there. The dress was long, in some beige tones and divided in half with a brown stripe. Then, when they printed photos from the graduation party, it turned out that it was transparent and huge white underwear shone through me. True, it was not very important: we had a very sad graduation, not a single cute boy and a feeling of universal longing. The ship was the most terrible test: it was impossible to get out of it and all the endless hours watched as the only couple formed that night kissed. Out of desperation, someone threw chairs. At six in the morning the ship landed at the river station and one of the most dreary nights in my life was over.
Catherine Krongauz
founder of the babysitter school Kidsout
year 2000
I bought a dress at a store in a shopping center in the lobby of the Tverskaya metro station, I don’t remember what it was, my mother sent me there. She said that the dress is very beautiful, with a crinoline. I didn’t wear dresses at all then, and my mother still bought high-heeled shoes — eerie, some kind of rectangular. It all looked so monstrous and I looked so hopeless in all of this that it was even silly to try to fix something. So I just tried to learn the day before to move in heels. I did not work out too much. I put my pants, vest and sneakers in the backpack for a shift and went to get a certificate. Somehow managed to get drunk before delivery.
I had a plan that when the director of the 57th school names my name, the lights will turn off in the hall, the searchlight will light up and the music from the film “Professional” will play - when he goes to the helicopter and the sniper keeps him on the gun, and it’s not clear whether. It was, so to speak, a metaphor of my relationship with the school, with the director, with everything in general. Everything was ready. But I was frightened at the last moment that I simply would not be given a certificate, at school you are still afraid of strange things. In general, at the last moment I canceled everything. Handing me a document, the director said: "Now I will live a long time." And I am glad that so far it goes. Immediately after that, I changed my clothes and, for some reason, danced with a basketball ball under Britney Spears “Oops, ah Did it and Egene” on the skit. All this, it seems, was exactly as horrible and tasteless as I recall it now. Yes, and in the same dress was another girl from a parallel class!
Ekaterina Fedorova
journalist
year 2000
The dress from the prom this year marks its 15th anniversary, and it is still the most-favorite. It was bought six months before the celebration in the then fashionable “Actor Gallery” on “Pushkinskaya”. I saw and realized that I could no longer live without him. The label says "Roberto Cavalli", but I strongly doubt its authenticity. It was 2000, minimalism was just beginning to give way to logos, rhinestones and other joys from the clips of Jennifer Lopez - and my silk “night dress” with a print in the form of a giant diamond just united both directions. I still wear it at least once a year, lately, however, after describing it as a “turquoise, childish dress” in a receipt from the dry cleaner, I do it only at sea resorts, but I will never give it to anyone. At the very prom I was a star, but not for long. My then boyfriend somehow came to lightning speed, and I had to take him to the hotel and sit in my room in a beautiful dress while he was sleeping and everyone else was having fun. But in times of student life, it has worked a lot of furious nights and sunrises. I would choose it today, but I would definitely not have painted my eyes with shiny turquoise shadows, and then I would go around all the shops to find a suitable shade.
Ksenia Tumanova
co-owner of a hairdressing salon Ptichka
2002
I graduated from school in 2002, at the end of the era of trips to clothing markets. And then everything that related to evening fashion was quite a shocking look and at the same time in a limited range. If you wanted a plain outfit of simple silhouette, then they were fashioned in the old-fashioned studio for six months. Like my classmates, I was then long tossed between something spectacular and something that you could still wear later. But two months before the prom in the studio did not take orders and I had to choose a less shocking option from all presented in my hometown near Moscow. Then we had only three clothing stores of the “fashionable clothes from Italy” level, where everything was expensive, but in one copy. The dress I chose was worth 5,000 rubles, which at the time was very decent money - they could buy a pantsuit and a bag for it. And for a whole month I convinced my parents that this was exactly what I needed, even lied that I would wear it later for weddings of my girlfriends. To the dress I sewed a cape of tulle and bought shoes on a 10-centimeter heel, which I had never worn before. As a result, at the graduation, I, like everyone, looked like a brilliant Fly-Tsokotukha, but at least no one had exactly the same dress. In the morning, I torn my heels in the dance with heels 40 centimeters from the floor, poured the rest with drinks and after graduation proudly packed what was left of the dress in a polyethylene case and never got out. A couple of years ago, my mother timidly asked if I would still wear it or can be thrown away.
Nastya Khoreva
Director of Communications at Utopia Pictures
2002
The dress was purchased in the Sinequanone shop on the area of three stations, in the Moskovsky department store, it seems, under the strict supervision of my mother. She kind of dreamed of wrapping me with tulles and flounces, but I threatened her that if it continued this way, I would go in jeans and a T-shirt. I obviously said this very seriously, so she gave up and we somehow approved the dress with her. To him relied supersandals, ha ha. I remembered for a long time what kind of company it is: Shellys, in 2002, these shoes were on the shelves next to the martins and grinders in the Shoes 21st Century store, but unlike the first two, I had sandals in my assortment . I then listened to Nirvana and decided that it would be very cool, such as protest. She worked on her hair at home, and also worked on her legs with the help of tanning. I couldn’t understand how it works, and when I went to school with my friends, I realized that I was just starting to get covered in spots — that is, I went tan. Well, we spent twenty minutes with a friend for about twenty minutes, somehow tried to wipe these spots on my legs, it’s good that I didn’t smear my face.
The photos clearly show my neighbors. I can not comment on it, but it seems that I was one of the most decent. It is necessary, by the way, to take into account that this is 2002 and the super-small city near Bryansk, where I graduated from school. After the official part, we went somewhere, whether to the forest, or to the park, by some huge number of people, five classes, or even more, from different schools. And there in my beautiful dress I sat on the logs, and, it seems, sat on the floor without being embarrassed. The next morning I saw at home that all the dress in small-fine hairs were rezinochki, which got out of it after all these forest manipulations. The dress was hidden, my mother decided not to report about it.
Natasha Gulyaeva
PR consultant
Year 2003
I had a Louis Vuitton dress - the first expensive thing in my wardrobe. I stumbled upon it in a glossy magazine that my mother bought. In this dress was Natasha Vodianova at the beginning of his career. A dress in a linen style (similar to a peignoir) of soft lemon color, moderately open and in shape. In the morning the dress was splashed with champagne and red wine - a classic. Now it seems to me the choice of the “girlish” outfit is strange: I was a fan of the Distemper group, I went in torn jeans, hoodies and Vans sneakers.
I must say that all classmates were smart and hairstyles. We looked strange from the outside: so young, but made up like adults and with the towers of Babel on their heads. Now I understand that, but then everything seemed organic. In spite of the fact that I avoided the covered and shining curls, I had a too elegant hairstyle. Now I would make a disheveled bundle. The funny thing is that I asked my dad to give me a lift at the Mercedes, so that everything resembled a secular outlet in full.
Maria Borzilova
creative director of the agency "Tsentsiper"
2004
My parents are scientists, and with the money we were at that time even worse than everyone. Therefore, I tried not to think about the dress. But my mom had an unexpected idea. She somewhere found the address of Natalia Vetlitskaya (why it was her, for me still remains a mystery) and sent her a letter asking me to send one of her beautiful dresses to me. Vetlitskaya did not answer, but literally in a couple of days I found a decent amount of money on the street. My dress was bought on them. I categorically did not want a large and lush dress, but it was very difficult to find an alternative in Serpukhov near Moscow. But we managed to find some small boutique in the local market, where Italian dresses were piecemeal. We bought shoes there, but the jewelry was collected according to the familiar. It was a delicate pink woven from thin threads dress to the knees with laces on the hem. I was madly in love with it, because its simple top reminded me of Natasha Rostova's dress (a very classic girlish comparison). In it, I felt very elegant and girlishly innocent. The local hairdresser didn’t quite cope with the task of “natural curls” and nevertheless made me comb by pouring a liter of varnish on my head. But there was no time to correct the situation, so it went. Almost all the girls wound their "Babylon" on his head and dressed up in wedding dresses. There was no one in sexy transparent or slinky because we lived in a small scientific village in nine houses and all were shy about each other. Graduation took place in the school cafeteria. On that day, in our village, unexpectedly for everyone, they were forbidden to sell alcohol and we had to get out, begging friends to go to a nearby town and bring at least something alcohol. As a result, we were not very drunk that evening, so we walked together until morning and, according to the tradition, we bathed in the local pond at dawn.
Julia Kosmynina
producer agency Louder
2006
From the very beginning, I clearly knew that no lush dresses and high hairstyles would appear on me for sure. The dress was chosen with my mother, who has great taste and quite progressive looks. The Morgan store was almost the first one we entered, and immediately saw a red dress with a deep cleavage made of high-quality fabric, and we stopped at it. It cost 3000 rubles. So I didn’t have the agony of choosing a graduation outfit at all. But with the hairstyle, everything was much worse: having spent more than three hours in the barbershop, I saw something completely vague and complex on my head. As a result, on the way, I blew it all through tears, washed my head quickly at home and, not even having time to dry it properly, rushed to the presentation. The dress made an extraordinary furor and even contributed to cardinal changes in my personal life (I hope, not only because of the deep neckline). I later wore him a couple of times to parties in Solyanka and Simachev - the effect was unchanged. Then my apartment burned down, and along with it my dress, which I still think about with chagrin. Cool was the dress. In general, I had quite fashionable classmates, most looked stylish and elegant, but without a girl who could not get in at the door of the bus because of the pomp of her dress, it wasn’t enough, of course.
Anastasia Podurets
Marketing Assistant
2007
All the guys at the prom were in suits, and the girls - in different styles of dresses: someone in a cute romantic, someone looked adult and sexy. I was in a dress of natural silk, rich blue. His mother sewed. We chose the fabric specifically for silver sandals so that the color of the dress at least does not conflict with them. Silk was very pleasant to the touch, but proved to be difficult to process. However, mom managed, for which I am very grateful.
I just turned seventeen years old and wanted on this important day to look adult, stylish, sexy - in a word the way my classmates did not see me. I think all graduates think the same way and make the same mistake. Now I understand that youth is transient and there is no need to rush to grow up. Seventeen happens only once. Now I think it was worth choosing a more girlish modest style. By the way, my mother then objected to the deep cleavage, but went to meet me.
Olya Fursova
Assistant Editor-in-Chief, ELLE Decoration magazine
2007
In 2007, everyone dressed in skate shops, wore large DC sneakers with multi-colored laces, sweatshirts not in size and jeans slipping from behind. Listened, of course, pop punk and emo music. I then dyed my hair in inky black, and chose a punk-fateful image for graduation. Платье нашла в Karen Millen, жакет - в Mango, туфли, моя первая обувь на каблуке, были найдены в каком-то неизвестном магазине в ТЦ рядом с домом. Из макияжа (если это можно так назвать) были только накладные ресницы, приклеенные самостоятельно, а вот ради начеса в стиле Эми Уайнхаус пришлось пойти к парикмахеру. Чувствовала я себя в таком образе прекрасно. Выбор нарядов одноклассниц был разным: от платьев-тортов и платьев феи (когда спереди коротко, а сзади шлейф) до скромных вечерних платьев. Многие шили платья на заказ.
Лиза Смирнова
coordinator of the camp "Kamchatka"
YEAR 2009
At the graduation, I was in a neat magenta dress and bright sandals; from the accessories there are navy feathers and the same tippet. Somewhere an hour before graduation, I thought it would be worthwhile to do a manicure, a friend randomly brought me a rich blue lacquer - it fit perfectly. Everything, oddly enough, looked harmonious. If I had a graduation now, there is a chance that I would dress the same way.
I remember that I really did not want to bother much with the outfit. Still did not want to spend a lot of money. I guessed that I would never wear anything that I would choose for graduation, and I would not have tender feelings for these things either. So it was all a poorly recognizable mass market. I also wanted to look reserved - in order to feel comfortable and not to be ashamed to look at the photos after a few years. In general, it seems I coped.
My classmates were dressed as the classmates of each of us. Experiments with feminine images in girls - voluminous curls, evening or, on the contrary, bright airy dresses, everything is elegant - and simple suits for children. In general, we all looked pretty.
Ksyusha Obukhovskaya
journalist
year 2012
I finished 11th grade as an external student six months before the official graduation and spent all my time preparing for admission. Therefore, I never really waited for graduation — for me, it was rather something like a formality that needed to be completed for my mother, and then forget about it forever. Plus, I already knew that our school would go to the graduation party to the Kremlin, that is, a two-hour Russian pop concert was not what I wanted to wait for.
I remembered the need to buy a dress about a month before the holiday. I had beautiful (as it seemed to me then, at least) red shoes with satin ribbons from the Lanvin x H & M collaboration that were bought on impulse and which I never wore. Well, I think, why should the good disappear and decided to find myself at the prom red dress. So I got this dress with a satin bodice and organza skirt. I do not deny that a red dress is a risky decision worthy of femme fatal women, but in principle it was beautifully combined with the skin color of a man who has not left the house for the past six months.
Before graduation, I made several attempts to look for something suitable in online stores and in wedding boutiques, but all I found was either too much like a cake, or too expensive to hang up and show to my grandchildren afterwards. Therefore, the optimal solution was to sew a dress - you can choose the fabric, style and at the same time do without a centner of rhinestone. My mother made the dress - as this woman made almost all my children's dresses, I thought that she could be trusted.
Most of my classmates looked like all the classic classmates from jokes on the Internet. Although, reviewing the photos, I understand that I have no right to judge them. I know some girls from my school who approached the task extremely responsibly and even went for their dresses to conditional Paris in order to find something out of the ordinary. I think that this year I would choose for myself something similar to the Valentino Pre-Fall 2015 collection, such a fabulous translucent dress of a Disney princess. Well, or, conversely, something black and minimalist. And would take a sneaker, of course.
Lera Nikolskaya
soloist of kaigerda
year 2014
Initially, I wanted another dress: light from flowing silk. I decided to sew it at the tailor. She picked up a pearl-colored fabric, the tailor took measurements and began to sew. He has been doing this all his life, besides being a friend of our family, and I was calm about the result. She passed the exam, gave the fabric to the tailor and went to rest. Two days before graduation, Mom calls me and in a trembling voice says that the dress is ruined: the fabric was wrongly worked out and, what is most beautiful, our friend-tailor refuses to alter it.
I was not upset. My mother and I went to Moscow shops and found this black asymmetrical dress in the TSUM, baring one shoulder. In it, I remind myself of Alissa Milano from the series “Charmed”, so I liked it immediately. In addition, the price was more affordable than other options.
My school celebrated graduation on the 28th floor of the Red Hills Hotel. Dress there was the way. I felt like someone between the passion of Timati (very many of his tracks were selected by the DJ) and the girlfriend of James Bond (classics of the genre). Classmates looked much more elegant: a huge number of accessories and lush hairstyles. I do not like either one or the other.