Remember the dress you wore to your high school prom? So does Jill Cutler. This is how she and her mother chose her dress for the New York Military Academy Ball in the 1950s:
“It boiled down to a choice between two dresses. Both were strapless, with heart-shaped bodices, and had acres of skirt pouffing out from their tiny waists. I liked the red dress better, but my mother was worried about whether it would stay up—when I zipped the zipper I could still breathe, so she knew it didn’t fit.”
Jill Cutler has worked in publishing and taught English composition at Yale. She also ran the Yale Summer Writing Program.
