We haven’t even made it to February and already 2020 is shaping up to be an extremely controversial year for hair. First, we saw the return of the mullet (enough said), and now another trend from the past is back to haunt us: Prom hair.
You know the look. In fact, you probably rocked it at a school dance between the years of 1999 to 2003. It essentially consists of some kind of updo, usually a bun, and the defining trait is the two long, loose pieces of hair in the front, often lovingly referred to as tendrils. If looking at old photos of this hairstyle (captured on a disposable camera, obviously) makes you cringe, I have some bad news for you—because it’s officially the “new” trend on the red carpet. J.Lo, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Margot Robbie, to name just a few, have all recently made an appearance with their front pieces ready to party. And, honestly, I don’t hate it.
“Like all trends and styles, the ones that are cool tend to circle back,” says hairstylist Laura Polko, who did Julia Fox’s look at the Critic’s Choice Awards earlier this month. Whatever your definition of “cool” might be, she definitely has a point: the early-aughts are clearly having a renaissance right now.
As lip gloss, French manis, and low-rise jeans have all rotated back into modern lexicon, it only makes sense that prom hair, as popular as it was at the time, would also re-emerge. Hairstylist Justine Marjan, who often uses ’90s and early ’00s references as inspiration, points to our love for Lizzie McGuire as another example of our nostalgia for simpler times—and piece-y hairstyles.
There is a lot happening at Netflix lately. There’s been some bad news, like the company announcing it would stop streaming The Office in 2021. But there are exciting developments too, like tons more Queer Eye, another round of GLOW featuring Oscar winner Geena Davis, and even a series all about Dolly Parton.
And among those new developments is a star-packed musical we can’t wait to see. Deadline reported that Glee and Scream Queens creator Ryan Murphy is getting started on a massive film called The Prom, starring Ariana Grande and Meryl Streep. Those two icons are just the tip of the iceberg. The script will be based on a Tony-nominated Broadway musical of the same name, and the cast is made up of a seemingly endless list of stars. Here’s what we know about the project so far.
It’s based on a Tony-nominated Broadway musical.
The Prom made its debut in Atlanta in 2016, and then it came to Broadway in 2018. It follows the story of two washed-up Broadway actors, Dee Dee Allen and Barry Glickman, who travel to Indiana to defend a high school girl’s right to take her girlfriend to prom. The show scored six Tony nominations earlier this year, including nods for Best Musical and Best Direction.
Ryan Murphy poses backstage at the 2019 Tony Awards at Radio City Music Hall.Jenny Anderson/Getty Images for Tony Awards Productions
The cast is next-level good.
Streep will play Dee Dee Allen, and James Corden will star as her professional partner Barry Glickman. The cast will also include Nicole Kidman and Andrew Rannells as friends of the actors, while Awkwafina will play a publicist. Over at the high school, Keegan-Michael Key will take on the role of the principal, as well as a love interest for Streep. Grande will portray Alyssa, the popular secret girlfriend of the main character, Emma. There’s currently a national search for the actor who will play Emma.
On October 10, Deadlinereported that Kerry Washington is also joining the star-studded cast, though we don’t know exactly what her role will be yet.
The film is part of Ryan Murphy’s five-year Netflix deal.
Murphy previously made headlines for signing a five-year deal with Netflix, reportedly valued in the $250 to $300 million range. Murphy, who worked with Grande on Scream Queens, has shared that he has about 10 projects in the works for Netflix, including three moves, four TV shows, and three documentaries.
Khloé Kardashian has had quite the busy weekend. While live-tweeting the most recent episode of Keeping Up with the Kardashians, she revealed two things: (1) She’s moving, which isn’t that interesting. (Well, it will be if she stays with Kris Jenner in the interim, like Kim and Kanye did, and the KUWTK cameras film it.) And (2) She attended her first high school prom. Yup, the Good American mogul confirmed on social media that she did, in fact, go to prom with one of her super-fans named Narbeh, who runs a Kardashian-centric Instagram account with more than 240,000 followers.
“My very first prom and I went with THE BEST date ever @NarbehKardash !!!!! We had so much fun!!! How handsome is my date???” she tweeted.
The prom took place at Hoover High School in Glendale, California, and for the occasion Kardashian wore a slinky black dress with a keyhole cutout. Narbeh was in a sleek black suit and, of course, bought his famous date a corsage. Naturally, they both shared a bunch of photos from the evening on social media. “Thank you for inviting me boo ?? it was perfect!!” Kardashian tweeted. “I loved meeting your family!! We can’t forget how gorgeous your Queen grandmother is!!!”
Narbeh documented most of his evening on Instagram. “Took @khloekardashian as my date to prom… so many more photos to come. I’m feeling over the moon ,” he wrote in one caption.
“Wow. Sharing my prom with @khloekardashian was an over the moon experience for me,” he later posted. “I want to thank Khloé, her team, @hoovertornados, my amazing mentor @mmelikian, and my family for making this all happen. Being w Khloé made me feel like i was with just one of my cousins. I’ll never forget this night! Enjoy these beautiful pictures! I’m so thankful! and Kokkkesssss you’re beautiful! ?”
I need to hear a play-by-play of their evening. Did Narbeh greet Khloé by quoting one of her classic KUWTK lines? Did they have in-depth conversations at dinner about the cultural impact of Kourtney and Khloé Take Miami? Did they slow dance to Kim’s song “Jam?!”
It’s not clear at this point how the prom date came to be, but maybe we’ll see it all on an upcoming episode of KUWTK. You may remember that Khloé’s sister Kylie Jenner also famously attended prom with a fan (and ex-BFF Jordyn Woods) back in 2017, which was documented on her short-lived show, Life of Kylie.
We’re sure it was a fantastic night for all in attendance at Hoover High, but especially for Narbeh, who told E!, “We had such a fun time! I’m so thankful and I’ll never ever forget my prom night!”
Now that Michelle Obama‘s highly anticipated memoir Becoming is out, we’re all getting an intimate look at the former First Lady’s time in the White House. One of the book’s most candid scenes comes when Obama describes the very parent-y way she and Barack embarrassed their oldest daughter, Malia, just before her prom.
Obama writes that in the spring of 2015, Malia revealed that she wanted to go to prom with “a boy she kind of liked.” She had only one super-relatable request of her parents on the big night at Washington, D.C.’s Sidwell Friends High School: “Just be cool please, OK?”
The Obama’s apparently did as they were told, but maybe they were a little too cool.
“On the appointed evening, her date arrived in his car, clearing security at the southeast gate of the White House, following the path up and around the South Lawn by which heads of state and other visiting dignitaries normally arrived, and then gamely — bravely — walking into the Dip Room dressed in a black suit,” Obama remembers in the book. She and Barack took an elevator down with Malia to met the boy, and Obama shares that to her daughter’s mortification, “I was barefoot, and Barack was in flip-flops.”
They had arranged for Malia’s date to drive, an exception since Malia would normally be accompanied by Secret Service. Still, Obama writes, a security detail would “basically ride the boy’s bumper all the way to the restaurant they were going for dinner before the dance.”
“By my reckoning, we did manage to play it cool, though Malia still laughs, remembering it all as a bit excruciating,” she writes.
During the past few weeks, a particular news story has sent shockwaves through my personal social network: Keziah Daum, an American teenager, wore a traditional Chinese dress—known as either cheongsam or qipao, depending on whether you speak Cantonese or Mandarin—to her high school prom in Utah. The problem? Daum is not of Chinese descent.
Having moved to London from Hong Kong, I’ve become part of a close-knit community of young Asian women living in the UK. Since the dress debacle, the WhatsApp group we use to stay in touch has been flooded with a steady stream of articles covering the controversy, as well as screenshots of Daum’s response and people’s outraged reactions. These updates were often shared along with a slew of angry emojis and all caps responses, to the tune of, “how dare she?”
“I suppose I was frustrated by it mainly because it looks out of context,”says Melissa Legarda, 25, a Filipino-British journalist who initially shared the story with the group. “I always have such a skepticism when I see a [non-POC] wearing a dress of another country or tradition that’s not [their own] because most of the time, they don’t appreciate the traditions involved in that culture.” Legarda’s sentiment mirrors the reaction shared by many Asians in the West, who have taken to Twitter to voice their dissent. One particular tweet, accusing Daum of cultural appropriation, has been retweeted over 41,000 times at publish time.
On Facebook, where I still keep in touch with my friends from Hong Kong, my feed tells a completely different story. Karen Chiang, one of my Hong Kong-based friends, shared a BuzzFeed article covering the controversy, writing, “This girl rocked it. Full stop.” Other commenters agreed,echoing the effusive feedback thousands of Chinese netizens have shared on Weibo, China’s answer to Twitter. The message was clear: To the Chinese, Daum totally rocked the dress—no offense taken.
“I didn’t think there was a more appropriate or respectful way for a foreigner to pay homage to qipaos and the Chinese culture, especially compared to occasions where Chinese culture is reduced to a fans, dragons, and chopstick-in-a-top-bun kind of moment,” Chiang writes in an email. The 25-year-old wellness blogger and freelance writer grew up in Hong Kong, and has seen many white expats in Hong Kong partake in the aforementioned type of dress—but didn’t see any hints of malice or racism.
“I probably raised an eyebrow [at these people], because they look quite silly most of the time. But, as long as people are trying their best to respect and appreciate a culture, I’m cool with it. It’s still better than if they didn’t bother to open their minds at all.”
PHOTO: Anadolu Agency
A group of women in Beijing, China wearing the traditional qipao.
Detractors of Daum argued that the group shot of her and her friends made the dress choice even more problematic: The teenagers were photographed squatting while making prayer hands and peace signs, which many perceived as a gesture to mock Asian stereotypes. In a statement to Teen Vogue, Daum has clarified that the pose was not meant to be derogatory, but rather, a reference to a popular YouTuber.
“It’s obviously a bad idea to adopt the pose, since Daum was already appropriating the qipao, and the pose is very similar to the ‘Asian squat’—a pose] associated with Asian people,” says Isabelle Landicho, a 26-year-old Filipino-British stylist and one of my close friends firmly in the disapproving camp. “Obviously, people are going to associate the two factors and be offended! If you’re not an Asian person or not participating in an Asian event or practice, I think it’s a slur.”
I was born and raised in China, but have spent most of my young adulthood in the West. I have complicated feelings about this dichotomy of opinion.
PHOTO: TPG
Women participating in a Cheongsam Fashion Show in Chongqing, China, in September 2017.
My international experience has opened my eyes to the type of racial prejudice and microaggressions my fellow Chinese and Asian immigrants face daily (not to mention the atrocities of Japanese internment camps and the Chinese Exclusion Act), so I can’t fault my peers in the West for feeling aggrieved by Daum’s decision. It’s easy to perceive her actions as some form of mockery rather than celebration.
Landicho recalled a harrowing incident where, while she was working on set at a photo shoot in London, someone held up a prop that looked similar to the Asian conical hat, put it on, and claimed that now they resembled her.
Legarda admitted that her experience growing up Asian in the UK colored her reaction to the prom dress. “If someone had worn a traditional African dress and did a pose, there would be uproar,” she says. “But I feel like Asians and Asian culture are constantly sidelined just because of a race hierarchy within the societal structure.”
PHOTO: Rob Kim
Costumes on display in the Costume Institute’s 2015 ‘China: Through The Looking Glass’ exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
However, in a community that feels as homogenous as China—where 92% of the population is Han Chinese—the intricacies of cultural appropriation might not translate. Ian Tam, a 25-year-old paralegal in Hong Kong, puts it this way: “Chinese culture doesn’t have ‘PC’ culture like American culture does. If we see a person in traditional costume, we just comment on how well it fits them.”
In fact, the Chinese love dressing up in traditional garments from other cultures: Head to any major city in Japan, and you’ll spot a slew of “kimono experience” shops, where you can rent a full kimono for a day. Visitors from China, which accounts for over a quarter of Japan’s tourism, can’t get enough. The potential for a social media photo ops was just too good to pass up.
I was one of those Chinese tourists: On a trip to Japan in 2014, I spent two hours getting into traditional dress, got my hair and makeup done, and visited different shrines of Kyoto all day. Perhaps my East Asian descent gave me more of a “cultural license” to do so. I loved receiving looks of admiration from tourists and onlookers, some of whom asked to take photographs with me. I looked—and felt—like a princess. And if my money benefitted local businesses, then why the hell not support?
On paper, my intentions didn’t seem all that different from Daum’s. In a follow-up tweet, she claimed her decision to wear a qipao to prom stemmed from her appreciation of Chinese culture. But, the more I thought about it, there was one glaring aspect that set us apart: the cultural context.
Before I ever put a kimono on my back, I made sure to be clued in on the cultural dos and don’ts of wearing a one—along with the correct praying etiquette at shrines and temples. Even though I did all this to check something off my bucket list, I was intentional about educating myself. Meanwhile, I wasn’t as convinced by Daum’s claims on Twitter: Had she demonstrated any previous interest in learning Mandarin or in gaining a deeper knowledge on the heritage of qipao, I would have gladly been more understanding—instead, she referred to the qipao as “a gorgeous dress I found for my last prom” in a tweet, stripping it of its cultural identity until it was time to justify her choice. She also retweeted a meme that essentially positioned herself as a “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” white victim. Then there was that group pose. Pure bad optics.
I’d imagine the reasoning behind my skeptical stance would be lost on most of my compatriots. “China is still very influenced by western trends: [The Chinese] see it as flattery for the trend leaders to adopt their culture,” writes Chiang.
PHOTO: VCG
A group of women, both Chinese and foreign, celebrating Hangzhou Global Cheongsam Day in Hangzhou, China in May 2017.
Due to the country’s status as an “uncool” developing country, many in China will immediately reward Westerners for displaying even a modicum of interest in our culture. Just look at Jessie J, the only Western participant to ever compete on Singer, the Chinese version of The X Factor—previously unknown in China, she won by a landslide, gaining half a million followers on Chinese social media along the way. And, I can’t even begin to count the number of times white men have approached me online and in real life, uttering “ni hao”—“hello” in Mandarin, despite my native tongue being Cantonese—and expecting me to throw myself on them for knowing the simplest greeting in the Chinese language.
I’m not sure if there’s anyone out there who, like me, is also sorting out conflicting feelings on the conversation surrounding Daum’s prom dress. But, just in case there’s someone on the same boat, I felt very understood by this tweet by Jerry Wang, a Chinese-American Twitter user in Durham, NC:
Until this becomes the norm, I will probably meet any non-Chinese girl in a qipao with a certain level of apprehension—unless she’s armed with enthusiastic questions about my culture.
Venus Wong is a lifestyle journalist based in London, specializing in travel writing and Asian cultural commentary. Follow her on Instagram: @venuswongisun.
The red carpet at Sunday night’s 2018 Screen Actors Guild Awards featured a slew of spectacular looks. One dress on the carpet, however, came from a somewhat unexpected source. Pulling an extreme power move, Lady Bird star Beanie Feldstein decided to forgo a conventional designer gown in favor of her high school prom dress.
“I put it on and it fit, surprisingly maybe better than it did in high school,” she told The Cut. “I looked at myself, and I was like, WHAT!? and my mom and her best friend were just laughing so hard, like, ‘You have to wear it! There’s just no other dress that would be better.’”
Indeed, Feldstein looked extremely elegant in the black Kay Unger gown on the red carpet—a dress that, to be honest, didn’t look a bit out of place among, say, costar Saoirse Ronan’s pink Louis Vuitton gown or Danielle Brooks’’ showstopping sequined Marc Bouwer ensemble.
PHOTO: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images
Feldstein told The Cut that the prom dress felt especially fitting for the Screen Actors Guild Awards—the first time she’ll attend an awards show as a nominee (Lady Bird received a nomination for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture)—due to her character Julie’s storyline in the film. “It’s just a gorgeous dress, and I love how my character’s story ends at the prom,” she said. “So like, for the first time I’m going to an awards show as a nominee with the cast, it’s like, ‘You gotta wear your prom dress, girl, and honor Julie.’”
