Coordinate Your Prom Dress with Your Date’s Outfit
Coordinating prom outfits is a fun way to identify as part of a couple or a group at prom. There are many ways to coordinate your prom dress with your date’s outfit. Color, fabric, pattern, and texture, as well as corsages and boutonnieres, all hold potential to create an elegant, complementary look.
Color
Guys have gone way beyond traditional black tuxes, with variations ranging from a touch of color in the tie or cummerbund to full-blown print jackets with trousers in many shades to solid jackets with colorful pocket squares. Let’s face it, however—at prom, the star of the show is still the young lady’s dress. Decisions about how to coordinate all emanate from the color, pattern, and fabric of the gown she has chosen.
If both members of a couple are wearing suits or dresses, choose styles that flatter the individual and a coordinated palette that incorporates a favorite color for each person.
If the dress is a solid color, the gent can go with a patterned jacket that picks up that color, paired with a white shirt and black tie. A print, sequined, or ombre dress provides multiple choices for coordinated or complementary colors. The trick is to be sure that your date chooses a truly matching shade. When you order your dress, ask if you can get a sample swatch of the fabric showing the pattern and all the colors along with the dress. If you have to have the dress altered, ask the shop to save the snippings for you. Providing a swatch will help your date, or more accurately the staff at the formalwear store, match the colors precisely.
Fabric and Texture
A floaty chiffon dress calls for something that looks lighter on the gentleman’s side. Of course, we don’t want to get close to the cliché powder-blue-with-ruffled-shirt-and-bellbottoms look from the ‘70s (unless your prom has a ‘70s theme). Instead, opt for a matching floral or pastel tie and pocket square. Metallics and sequins give your date the option to choose something sparkly in the same family (silver, gold, bronze) as the dress. Satin lapels complement a satin dress nicely.
Patterns and Prints
Formalwear shops may be able to provide an exact match of a print or patterned fabric to create a coordinated look for prom-goers. Custom shops might be able to fashion ties, pocket squares, cummerbunds, and vests from the same material as the dress or, at least, source the fabric for you so you can take it to your trusted tailor to whip up a set of accent pieces that will make you look terrific together.
Basic black makes a great ground for colorful, patterned, or glittery accent pieces including jewelry, hair ornaments, and earrings. Whatever your taste, you can find evening dresses online from Effie’s Boutique that can serve as the inspiration for a coordinated look for your prom date.