Back in the 40’s, when prom tickets were $5.00 and dances were held in the school gym, my mother-in-law attended a Catholic high school in Detroit. Lamenting today’s declining cultural trends, Mom was telling me that she and her classmates actually had to bring their prom dresses to school a couple weeks prior to the dance for the nuns’ approval. If you showed up in anything else, you wouldn’t get past the door.
Sure, the girls complained. But the nuns stuck to their guns. Everyone complied. And a good time was had by all.
So Mom and I are both happy to see this news about a locally-famous restaurant & catering facility that’s raising the expectation bar: Removing ‘raunchy’ from prom: The Roostertail cracks down.
Tom Schoenith, owner of the Roostertail, a popular party destination on the Detroit riverfront, is frankly fed-up with the sleazy attire of some of his teenaged patrons. For the 2012 prom season he’s instituted a formal dress code.
Girls are showing too much cleavage and wearing dresses that are too short. Guys are taking off their jackets and walking around in tank tops.
“When you’ve got the upper hand, you can then put your foot down about certain things, and I just said I’ve had it with the way some people look,” said Schoenith, whose facility will host more than 50 proms from now until mid-June. “I just want to go to back to the old traditional rules of etiquette.”
Bravo!
I like that they’re using the terms “ladies” and “gentlemen” – elevating expectations 
School administrators clearly approve of the Roostertail’s formal dress code ~
“Every single school that we talked to thanked us for being the bad guy,” Schoenith said. “When we’re taking in $40,000 for a prom over here, it’s got to be a classy affair.”
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Decades ago the high school prom was held in the high school gym. I don’t think they need to change the venue any time soon. But classing-up the dress code is certainly a positive development.
