A high school student from South Dakota made hers out of duct tape and received a college scholarship with it, despite the fact that some women desire of finding the perfect prom gown.
Like some senior high school students, Victoria Schoenherr looked for fellowships online to help pay for college. She found out about Duck Tape’s Stuck at Prom fellowship competition and provided the details to her father. The next day, she had floats of duct tape waiting to be made into an award-worthy costume,.
Schoenherr’s dress, which took over 160 hours and 80 rolls of Duck tape, was a runner-up in the contest and won the “Runway Worthy” award. Her gown was deemed the “most fashion-forward” by the courts.
In making her gown, the high schooler was inspired by the 18th century Flemish renaissance style, Barbie and Tim Burton,. She wanted the dress to be both attractive and as big as possible, so large it wasn’t “fit through door structures.”
“Because I had to create all this material, I believe I made a 10-by-5-foot tube tape section. I pleated it and tried to make a skirt out of that, and it didn’t work. I made an entirely different set of sleeves, and it didn’t work. Therefore, only a lot of destroying and figuring it out”, Schoenherr said.
She worked on the costumes for a production of “People and Dolls” through her graduation, and she even lit the piece up by light during a storm. She claims that seeing her dress on TikTok and hearing other people’s good comments made it all worthwhile.
“A lot of people seem to really like it, which makes me so happy”, Schoenherr said.
This isn’t Schoenherr’s first time designing, as she has done costume design for multiple staged productions and her own wardrobe, and she says it definitely won’t be her last.
“I’m very project-based. I say I’m like a boundary dog. If I don’t have a project to do, I start to eat furniture, like ‘I need to do something.’ But, I can completely see myself doing a great, ridiculous project at some point again”, she said.
Schoenherr intends to study at the University of Northern Colorado. As a runner-up in the contest, she won a $1, 000 scholarship and earned an extra $1, 000 scholarship for her “Runway Worthy” title.