A Tennessee senior at White Station High School designed an original prom dress to honor all the influential Black women who had an impact on her.
The dress desinged by 17-year-old Skyler Branch, 17, featured images of iconic women like Michelle Obama, Oprah, Maya Angelou, Halle Berry and more. She also incorporated her paternal great-grandmother that passed away and her mother.
Branch’s mother Dayna shared with Yahoo Lifestyle what her daughter told her, “Mom, there’s been so many extraordinary African-American women who have done so much for me. I want to show them some respect so that they know that not just the older adults but the younger adults appreciate who paved the way.”
Dayna immediately began working on making her daughter’s vision a reality. She called up a seamstress named Shannon Pierce to start working on the dress. “I called Shannon up and told her what concepts Skyler wanted, and what we wanted the dress to look like. We sat down with her, we went over the print and where we wanted everyone to be. She has her great-great grandmothers on there, she has her great grandmothers on there, as well as her grandmothers. She has all of her aunts from Memphis to Houston. Everybody’s on there.”
Before Skylar headed off to her senior prom, she visited her maternal 87-year-old great-grandmother, who’s also featured on the dress, to show off her look and she was amazed. Other family members cried.
