Prom dresses usually come with sequins or satin. Sophie Chai went with 35 rolls of duct tape.
The 17-year-old from Union City is one of five finalists in the “Duck Tape Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest: Best Dress” category, with a $10,000 scholarship on the line. Chai, a James Logan High School graduate and rising San Jose State freshman, made a strawberry shortcake-inspired gown out of duct tape after finding the scholarship opportunity in January.
“I immediately told my mom, I was like, ‘I’m gonna apply to this scholarship, let’s go to Michael’s and buy some duct tape,’ my mom was like, okay!” she said.
Chai said the dress was inspired by her experience growing up as a girl and struggling with beauty standards and expectations of femininity.
“My dress was inspired by my experience growing up as a girl and struggling with beauty standards and expectations of femininity,” Chai said.
She built a metal wire petticoat for the shape of the dress, then covered large sheets of fabric with pink and white duct tape and layered them over the petticoat. She also made bows, icing details, a duct tape corset, a headband, heels and a fork.
“I shaped many bows, and I had to make the icing one by one, and I also made like a duct tape corset for the dress, and I attached that onto my dress as well,” Chai said.
She said the strawberry cake theme was meant to reflect the pressure girls can feel to meet ideas of femininity.
“I chose the strawberry cake theme because I was trying to represent the pressure that many girls feel to fit into society’s expectation for a woman to be pretty, polished and decorated like a strawberry cake,” she said.
“I also created the fork to represent how consuming those expectations may feel to girls, like they feel like, oh, I have to be pretty, I have to dress a certain way or look a certain way in order to feel feminine enough.”
The project took more than 250 hours over five months, according to Chai. She said moving the dress for a photography session turned into its own problem.
“It wouldn’t fit out of my door, so I had to, like, I had to kind of deconstruct it, and then ship it out, and then put it on my dad’s van and then to transport it to the park,” she said.
Chai’s dress has picked up major attention online, with more than 139,000 likes on TikTok and 40,000 on Instagram. She said she has been happy to see the response, especially from her parents.
“I just feel so nice reading all the comments on social media and seeing all the support that I’ve got for my dress. And my parents are really proud of me as well,” Chai said.
“They’re like, ‘oh my gosh, I told my co-workers to vote for you today. My boss said that your dress is really cool!’”
California has two of the 10 finalists out of 160 entries considered this year. The other finalists are from Texas, Washington, Idaho, Alabama, Michigan, Ohio, Virginia and North Carolina.
The contest has been running for more than 20 years. Participants must create and wear original prom attire made from Duck Brand duct tape or crafting tape that they buy themselves. The best dress and best tux winners each get a $10,000 scholarship, while four runners-up in each category receive a $1,000 scholarship and a branded prize bundle.
Voting is open on the Duck Brand website until July 13, and winners will be announced on or around July 20.
“And as I grew up, I realized that femininity can be something I define for myself, and I can feel girly without trying to fit into this mold,” Chai said.
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