Gown

For boys and girls in high school, proms are magical, creating for some perhaps their best memories of high school life. Proms also are among the biggest expenses of their high school years. Tuxedos, gowns, clothing accessories, tickets, flowers and photographs add up to quite a sum even without the costs of hired cars and after-prom parties After she totaled the expenses and shopped with her daughter Nicole for a gown last year, Lorri S. Antonelli of Media came up with a new business - prom-gown rentals.

Barbara Bush, saying, "I love this dress and I really hate to give it up," formally presented the sapphire-blue gown she wore to her husband's Inaugural ball last January to the Smithsonian Institution yesterday. Bush, wearing a purple knit dress by Arnold Scaasi, who also designed the gown, thanked him and hairdresser Yves Graux. Referring to her eye disorder, she praised them for making "me feel like I looked good. Everybody knows I've had a dumb year, with pop-eyes and all sorts of weird things.

A daring rescue may be at hand in the incredible true story of Nancy Reagan's Amazing Growing Gown. Nancy Reagan's swanky floor-length inaugural gown is now more than floor length. It's grown over the toes of her evening slippers. If you don't believe it, go see for yourself on the second floor of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History. But, thanks largely to cartoonist Garry Trudeau, creator of the popular Doonesbury comic strip, and the generosity of a compassionate nation, help may be at hand.

Esther Payne Thorp, 88, a lifelong resident of North Wales and the retired owner of a gown shop, died Monday at the Suburban Woods rehabilitation center in East Norriton Township. As a dress designer, she had worked for Alfred Angelo, a well-known Philadelphia bridal gown retailer. She opened her own business, Gowns by Esther, on Walnut Street in North Wales in 1960 and operated the shop until retiring in 1991. Mrs. Thorp graduated from the former North Wales High School and from Philadelphia's Moore College of Art, where she majored in dress design.

It would be easy to say Kate Middleton's gorgeous, lacy Alexander McQueen bridal gown was like that of Philadelphia's own Grace Kelly. But then you wouldn't acknowledge how Middleton's timing makes her choice much more charming. She did, after all, don a modest ivory look after nearly two decades of brides in strapless, cleavage-baring, stark white dresses. Compared with other royal wedding examples, Middleton chose a shorter veil, and the borrowed-from-the-Queen tiara and the teardrop earrings by Robinson Pelham gave the look a classic, millennial twist.

The high school's annual prom fashion show had just ended when Mike Hightower strode to the front of the cafeteria at Rancocas Valley Regional and grabbed the disc jockey's microphone. "Excuse me, excuse me, can I have your attention please," the senior asked as he waited for the noisy lunchroom to become quiet. "I was wondering if Lynn Hoyer would like to go with me to the prom. " Off to the side of the room came a squeal of surprise from Hoyer, the class treasurer, followed by excited hugs from her friends.

Everything was going right for Nancy Gildein and her fiance, Charles Shustack, as they made final preparations for their July 30 wedding. A happy Gildein, 22, picked up her gown last week, taking care of one major chore. On Saturday, she placed the gown, her new luggage loaded with clothing and some cash in the back seat of her car before driving to her job on Frankford Avenue near Sellers Street in Frankford. She was going to drop off the gown and other items at her new apartment in the Ashton-Woodenbridge area after work.

One of the seven worst situations any woman can find herself in is the one where it's, say, less than 10 days before New Year's, or the cousin's wedding, or the company Christmas party, or maybe even her own wedding, and she's mushing frantically through the malls, hysteria mounting, because she absolutely has to find something to wear - now. One of the other seven, which usually results from the one above, is when she shows up at the whoop-de-doo in...

When brides spend countless hours finding - and then fitting into - the perfect wedding dress, it's no wonder they eventually have that pricey number professionally cleaned and packed away for future family heirloom status. But more women are taking a decidedly different approach to preservation: trashing the dress, and documenting it. Whether it's days or years after the big bash, former brides are letting loose for edgy photo shoots in which the dress is trashed (by mud, grass, paint, water, urban grime, sand)

"Cher will still look like Cher," reports designer Bob Mackie of the gown he's whipping up for the actress to wear at the April 11 Academy Awards. He promises, however, "she's not going to look like she did a couple of years ago" - when she showed up at the Academy Awards in a see-through harem outfit that was barely there. Mackie pleads guilty to having designed the outrageous outfit that set eyes to popping, but he assures us, "I didn't recommend it; it was her idea. " This year Mackie is not only designing the gowns Cher and producer Sherry Lansing will wear to the Awards, but is creating all the Oscar show costumes as well.

Some Villanova alumni and fans, it seems, are acting more immature than your average college student. Posters on a popular college sports message board, rivals.com, took potshots at residents who oppose the Catholic university's proposed $200 million expansion, which includes three dormitories, a six-story parking garage, stores, and a performing arts center. The residents belong to a newly formed group called Right Plan for Radnor. Rivals.com commentators singled out members of the group and their families for ridicule, using terms such as "overweight oaf," "gross," "imbecile," and "wild and horny" to describe them.

Now that the 2012 red-carpet hoopla is over, another high-drama fashion season is under way. Prom. If teens take their cues from this year's awards shows, high school gyms will be chock-full of old-school Hollywood glamour. Along with the latest blush tones, I'm predicting a plethora of frocks in fiery reds like the peplumed Louis Vuitton Michelle Williams wore Sunday night at the Oscars. (My absolute fave.) Bluish greens and cobalt blue will be important, too, and we can't forget black.

Gowns in sparkling nudes and vibrant shades were the major red-carpet trends Saturday evening at the 155th Academy of Music Anniversary Concert and Ball. Off-the-shoulder gowns seemed just as popular as strapless ones. And A-line silhouettes were preferred to ball gowns. In fact, Philadelphia's doyennes stepped up the glamour quotient to such heights that some of the dresses were dead ringers for gowns worn by celebrities on red carpets past. For example, first lady Lisa Nutter was particularly radiant sailing up the Academy of Music steps in a deep purple Nicole Miller gown.

Thanks to fresh colors, amazing details, and updated plays on classic silhouettes, the Golden Globes were a talker. From Angelina Jolie's Atelier Versace gown to Mary J. Blige's Michael Kors, our social-media feed is still a-twitter about a handful of gowns seen on the red carpet.   Academy Ball, anyone? Sarah Michelle Gellar's blue tie-dyed Monique Lhuillier featured major skirt drama and a little edge, but still managed to give us princess. We love, love, love Lea Michele's body-skimming Marchesa.

The Bearded Ladies are five women and two men. They sing - very well - and they wear bizarre costumes. Their new show, Wide Awake: A Civil War Cabaret , at the Wilma Theater this weekend and again Dec. 2 and 3, is wildly entertaining, even if it still needs some kinks worked out. Medley is the name of their complicated, charming, entertaining game: old and new, historical and contemporary, male and female, funny and moving, parody and pointed, if...

Thomas Gallia was a graduate student doing a science lab on the roof of a classroom building at Glassboro State College when the Secret Service took his student ID and rousted him from the building. He was interrupted during the most heralded three-day stretch in the history of the college - the remarkable 1967 meeting, in the midst of the Cold War, between President Lyndon B. Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei N. Kosygin at Hollybush, the college president's home. But the town was not able to capitalize on its international publicity.

ERIE - The bride wore a gown. The groom did, too. Given the setting, it was only appropriate. Cassy Messenger and Derek McBride had planned a beach wedding, but they ended up exchanging vows in a hospital chapel Saturday after McBride tumbled down a set of stairs on their wedding day, the Erie Times-News reported. McBride broke three ribs and suffered a punctured, collapsed lung in the fall. He was admitted to St. Vincent Health Center but didn't want to postpone the big day. Relatives and St. Vincent nurses decorated the chapel with medical-glove balloons and bows made of gauze.

The image of the perfect fairy-tale bride is in the midst of a makeover. And fashion has everything to do with it. The shift may be slow, but it's far from subtle: Lacy bracelet-length sleeves are popping up within a dress market once dominated by strapless styles. Sparkling tiaras paired with fingertip-length veils mean baby's breath and cathedral-length headpieces have some competition. Slimmer A-line bias cuts are featured alongside the pretty poufiness essential in the early millennium.

When Wendy Torres, 34, of Philadelphia's Wynnefield neighborhood, walks down the aisle in June, she'll be wearing the dress of her dreams. That's not because it's extravagant - a strapless, mermaid-style Mon Cheri gown with a chapel-length train and Swarovski beading - or because she snagged the $2,500 dress for $460. It's because the money she spent on her gown will support Making Memories, a wish-granting nonprofit for women and men with stage IV breast cancer. Starting Thursday through Saturday, Philadelphia brides-to-be will have the opportunity to score similar deals when Brides Against Breast Cancer - an annual nationwide touring sale that brings discounted, new and used wedding dresses to 40 cities - comes to the Ramada Philadelphia Airport hotel.

When brides spend countless hours finding - and then fitting into - the perfect wedding dress, it's no wonder they eventually have that pricey number professionally cleaned and packed away for future family heirloom status. But more women are taking a decidedly different approach to preservation: trashing the dress, and documenting it. Whether it's days or years after the big bash, former brides are letting loose for edgy photo shoots in which the dress is trashed (by mud, grass, paint, water, urban grime, sand)