“Now, this is the mother of all prom dresses,” seventeen-year-old Jordan Taylor declared in the Nordstrom dressing salon at the mall. She swept aside the pink velvet curtain of her changing stall and emerged wearing a hideously Carmenesque red satin cocktail number complete with flouncing purple petticoat and matching fake flower for the hair. Swinging her skirts, she sashayed across the carpet, giving her best friend, Nisha Khubni, the full effect of the outfit.

Nisha laughed at Jordan’s getup from atop a square pedestal in the main area od the dressing room. “If we were having an ugliest dress contest, you’d so be the winner right now,” she said.

“I know!” Jordan giggled, catching her gaudy image in the wall of mirrors. “It’s so awful, I couldn’t resist trying it on.” She wasn’t sure if it was the excitement over prom season or because she’d just led the Emerson High cheerleading squad to victory at Nationals, but Jordan was feeling giddy. She piled her shoulder-length blond hair on top of her head and stuck her tongue out at herself.

Nisha flipped her long dark tresses to one side and examined the sweet pale-yellow empire gown with satin spaghetti straps that she was wearing. Jordan thought the dress looked striking against Nisha’s latte-colored skin. “It’s gorgeous,” she commented.

“Thanks. I must have tried it on a million times but, I don’t know…” Nisha squinted at her reflection. “I guess it’s still a definite maybe,” she replied, stepping down from the pedestal. “What about the white gown you picked out, Jordan? I’m dying to see it on you.”

“I was saving that one for last,” Jordan admitted and headed back to the heap of rejects flung over the chair in her changing room: a swingy mauve-and-black knee-length dress that was too cutesy; a fitted coral micro-mini that looked hot on the hanger but, once on, had “wardrobe malfunction” written all over it; and a low-cut sparkly blue gown that kind of made her feel pageant-like – and not in a good way.

Peeling off the silly cha-cha dress, Jordan added it to the top of the pile. Then she carefully removed the one-shouldered white silk gown from its hanger and slipped it on over her head. As soon as she felt the cool fabric slide luxuriously down her skin, she knew it was going to be good. Nisha’s reaction when Jordan came out of the changing stall confirmed it.