Haute Dogs (and Anti-Prom)

It is the season of Prom.  For the benefit of blog visitors from elsewhere -I am thinking of my small but loyal Croatian following- I should explain that this is an annual rite of passage for kids in their last couple of high school years.  It involves formal clothing, flowers, a fancy dinner out followed by a dance that nobody seems to enjoy very much.  A particularly attractive couple get to be Prom King and Queen.  It runs a bit of money for even sensible people to attend, and for the spendthrifts it can stimulate the local economy considerably.

But who is talking about sensible people here.  Or even people.

Dogs in formal wear are an interesting inversion of humans in same.  I stand ever ready to have my opinions scoffed at and derided, but as I see it young men generally look silly in formal wear, young women not so much.

I figure it is because tuxedos are generally associated with a degree of social stature, a certain gravitas.  They are designed to camoflage the middle and minimize the expanding waist line that  often goes along with success.  17 year old kids tend to have the tux hang loose on them, their skinny necks with prominent adam’s apples doing little to enhance the effect.   Some dogs have a similar issue.

Too scrawny to make this work

Of course there are a few tuxedos that really should not see the light of day or the dark of prom night.  Unless you have the supreme confidence to wear some over the top burgundy wide lapel 70’s get up you should just stick with classic black and white.  I think dogs are color blind so this poor pooch did not suffer too much.

Looks like a Hugh Hefner bathrobe to me

The classic tux in a guy wearing it with panache?  Here it is.

Regards young ladies in formal wear let me make clear that my opinions are simply aesthetic.  There is an age at which a more intense interest in these matters is appropriate but I am about 3.1 multiples of that age.

Dogs just have a difficult time managing a good looking formal dress.  As in all things they try so hard.  Maybe it is that unfortunate chest hair thing.   Maybe, well, if you have a tail just about any outfit actually will make your butt look big. 

Here is a well accessorized young pup ready to “put on the dog”.

hmm, that pic of her boyfriend looks photoshopped...

And a couple of pretty good outfits.

rather squinty eyed..was this post prom, next morning look?

I note a slight resemblence to Carrie, from Sex in the City

Sadly, our household is at present dogless.  But we still have a Prom age kid nominally under our supervision.  But this year no Prom for him.  Along with some cohorts he is organizing an Anti-Prom.  Details are sketchy so far but a riverside venue is anticipated, the music will be live banjo, and the main activity of the night is to be cat fishing.

It sounds like at least as much fun as the official Prom, and much cheaper.  And less bother for us parental types.  Just make sure there is a rain plan, issue the usual prohibitions on alcohol and untimely progeny and I guess our work is done.

Outfits for a cat fishing Anti-Prom?  Maybe..

Posting from Hadrians Wall, six time zones away and on the edge of the Civilized World; best wishes to "Huck" and "Becky" the King and Queen of Anti-Prom