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Alex Castillo

What started off as an unorthodox idea became a reality for junior, Serenity Reynoso, who was inspired by fashion designer Coco Chanel to wear a pantsuit to Prom. “Coco Chanel brought back the suit and believed that women should comfortable if men can be comfortable,” Reynoso said. “One of the main reasons [I wore a pantsuit] was because I don’t really like dresses and plus it’s Prom and most girls will wear dresses so I thought it’d be fun to wear a pantsuit.” Senior, Aaron Leon, who was also Reynoso’s date, felt ecstatic to stand out from the crowd at Prom and know that his date was comfortable and happy. “It was an idea that I had, that we should both go in suits. She had been wanting to wear a suit, so it was the perfect opportunity for her to do that,” Leon said. “She’s different in a good way. She was the only one there that I saw with a women’s suit and she got a lot of compliments; it was all positive.”

Dancing, memories, and tradition are three words that describe the event long-awaited by high school students – Prom, which occurred for Downey High School’s student body on the 21st of May at the Wallis Annenburg Building at the California Science Center on the 21st of May.

A member of ASB’s prom-planning committee, junior, Angelica Mora contributed about 40 hours of her time to the event.

“The theme is kind of Phantom of the Opera; it’s a masquerade ball, but it’s not really Mardi Gras, because we wanted to be more classical,” Mora said. “The colors are also different because the color scheme for Phantom of the Opera is usually red, black, and white, but since all the dances this year have been those colors, we chose dark hues of purples to create a more ominous tone.”

An essential member to the operation that is Prom-planning, junior, Sunny Gill, worked alongside Mora as a junior representative and labored tediously in order to achieve the goal of creating a lit atmosphere.

“It wasn’t really difficult, but it was just consistently working on it daily. We could’ve made it hard on ourselves if we had waited until the last minute, but luckily, we were consistent and we would meet three times a week, and we had to start working about five months ago with the Prom committee.”

When it comes to Prom fashion, there are generally two routes a person can take as far as fashion goes- orthodox or unorthodox.

Senior, Kat Craig, planned to be especially unorthodox this Prom along with her boyfriend, for the couple to sport Pikachu masquerade masks.

“I’ve always been a person who likes to stand out, especially when it comes to Pokemon, because way back in middle school, I was bullied for my interest in Pokemon,” Craig said, “but ever since I moved to California people are a lot nicer.”

What one wears to Prom represents his or her style, and to be adamant about one’s self-expression is merely exercising one’s right. What started off as a joke between, Sarah Perez, 12, and her friends soon become a mission for the senior- to wear a suit to Prom.

“I jokingly brought up the suit idea to my mom in the car, and my mom was just like ‘I’m not gonna pay for that,’” Perez said.

Although Perez did end up wearing a dress to Prom, she still believes that students should dress in a way that makes them feel comfortable without worrying about what other people think.

Serenity Reynoso, 11, who attended Prom with her senior boyfriend, also had the idea of wearing a Calvin Klein light blue women’s pantsuit. What indoctrinated her to wear a suit are the models of Coco Chanel, who introduced pantsuits to women.

“I’m more of a fashionably casual person, so I’m not all that into dresses and I felt like a suit was less played out – for girls at least,” Reynoso said. “I thought it would be cool to do something different but still really feminine.”

When the final song came to an end, it did not matter what the students wore to Prom, rather, it was the valuable memories they made that shall be cherished for years to come.