Dateless teen takes himself to prom wearing 'epic' half-suit, half-dress
A dateless teen with a sense of humor took himself to prom wearing a handmade outfit: A half-suit, half-dress.
Wyatt Cheatle, a 16-year-old student at Brighton High School in Rochester, N.Y. didn’t have a date for his Saturday prom at St. John Fisher College, reported the Rochester Democratic and Chronicle.
“He wanted to go, but he didn’t know who to ask,” mom Kelly Cheatle tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “There’s so much emphasis on promposals, but if we get sucked into keeping up appearances, we miss out on life.”
Over dinner with his mom and three siblings, Wyatt said he might go to prom alone. “One of my kids jokingly suggested that Wyatt wear a dress because he wouldn’t look ‘half bad,’” says Kelly. “That’s where it started.”
Wyatt, who loves crafting and restoration (he’s currently refurbishing an antique typewriter), took the idea seriously. He and his mother went to Goodwill and pulled several items for less than $25: A black dress with a white top, a fuschia “pussy bow” shirt, a purple man’s dress shirt, and a pair of black pants.
Mother and son spent several hours cutting the dress in half, adding a button placket to the pink blouse, and up-cycling the bottom of the skirt. A friend came over to apply makeup to one side of Wyatt’s face: A black cat-eye and hot pink lipstick. “We didn’t use mascara because he already has lashes for days,” Kelly tells Yahoo Lifestyle.
Wyatt also clipped on a vintage earring, a star-shaped barrette, and a wrist corsage made from silk flowers.
“Shoes were the only problem,” Kelly tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “One of Wyatt’s feet is bigger than the other and we couldn’t find a pair of flats, so he wore his everyday sneakers.”
Kelly photographed the makeover and posted it to Reddit, writing, “So my son was flying solo to the prom, and decided that he'd be his own date. One thing led to another and the week before the big event, he decided rather than going with a boring old suit, we'd split the difference and send him in a half suit/half-dress. After a mad dash to the local thrift store, lots of cutting and rearranging, we were done. Didn't quite have time to find him shoes to match, but there's always senior prom hahahaha.”
At prom, Wyatt’s friends gave him high-fives for his “epic” outfit.
“Wyatt has a lot of people in his life who support his decisions,” Kelly tells Yahoo Lifestyle. “His outfit is the physical embodiment of his sense of humor.”
Read more from Yahoo Lifestyle:
Transgender teen denied 'prom king' title is crowned in gender-free school ceremony
Grandfather poses with dateless teen in prom photos: 'I knew he would dress to impress'
Mississippi high school bans students from bringing same-sex dates to prom
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