Trending: Everything you always wanted to know about prom...
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Your support makes all the difference.For women (me) of a certain age (30s), the word "prom" conjures up images of Sissy Spacek in a bias-cut dress accessorised with a bucket of pigs' blood.
Or memories of the guys and gals at Rydell High slow-dancing to "Blue Moon" and wondering exactly what Cha Cha DiGregorio had got up to to get that kind of reputation. Proms were something that happened in the movies – in my day, there were end-of-year discos and not a sniff of a corsage.
But in the last 10 years, British teenagers and pre-teens have caught up with their US cousins and now hanker after the tuxes and tiaras – as well as the limos and stretch Hummers – that go with a night of dancing in an over-lit school hall.
For any teenage girls not feeling sufficiently au fait with the rules of prom that they've gleaned from High School Musical, Glee et al (or for the curious 30-something woman starved of prom-style glamour in her youth), there's Prom magazine, and 2012's edition (£5.95) is out now. With features on getting the look, how to find the perfect dress, which celebrity looks to rip off and pigs'-blood-free beauty advice, it's something I can imagine Sandy, rather than Cha Cha, enjoying.
But I don't think anyone – hordes of excited schoolgirls included – could enjoy prom quite as much as the legions of limo-hire companies, hair stylists, dress shops, florists and, ahem, dedicated magazines, who are surely prom's biggest fans.
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