June 14

This High Schooler Turned Her Prom Dress Into a Work of Art

For this post, I’d like to suggest that the site be temporarily renamed, “Geek Arts,” because this girl went green with her art and prom, and has way surpassed any of us!

18-year-old Julia Reidhead, from Mesa, Arizona, knew that she wanted something special to wear to prom. She decided she would design her own dress. She and her mother purchased a used wedding dress for $40, and then Julia painted her own version of one of her favorite pieces of art — Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” — over the fabric, creating a gorgeous, one-of-a-kind dress.

prom dress

She sketched a design on the dress in pencil, then tested her acrylic paints on an extra swatch of fabric to make sure they would work. The overall process of painting the dress took more than 40 hours spread out over one week. She gradually worked her way up the dress, ending with the starry sky. Reidhead was still drying the gown with a blow-dryer five minutes before her date came to pick her up for the dance.