FASHION - Low Class vs. High Class.
Why do the runways of Europe and the US take the low class street culture for Haute Couture? What it means to be emotionally healthy.
Two Long Island high schools that canceled their senior proms after years of burgeoning excess that included limos and weekend house rentals in the Hamptons announced a cut-rate compromise Tuesday that will involve bus rides and other more modest arrangements. Instead of hiring chauffeurs, students will takes buses to a Manhattan pier for a dinner cruise. Instead of tuxedos and fancy ball gowns, the dress code will be jackets and ties for boys and dresses for girls. The cost is expected to be about $100 per student -- a fraction of the cost of the wild parties of the past.
Principal Kenneth M. Hoagland sparked a national debate about the ostentatiousness and debauchery that accompany many senior proms when he said last fall that his school would no longer sponsor a prom. Hoagland sent a 2,000-word letter last fall to Kellenberg students and parents, decrying the "bacchanalian aspects" of that schools prom.