LAKEVIEW — There will be 283 teenagers in silk, satin and chiffon at Lake View High School's prom on May 30. Cristal Garcia will not be one of them.
Make no mistake. Garcia, 18, wouldn't miss her senior prom for anything — nor is anyone likely to miss her entrance into Navy Pier's Crystal Gardens.
She'll be the one in the dress made of Skittles candy wrappers.
"I wanted something different. I wanted to stand out," Garcia said of the flouncy-skirted number, custom made by the Lakeview candy shop Candyality.
Candyality owner Terese McDonald and her staff are well-versed in fashioning frocks out of candy and wrappers, but they usually end up on store mannequins, like the ones Wrigley Co. commissioned them to make last fall for an event in Las Vegas.
But a dress that a girl could actually wear, not just anywhere but to prom, now that would be something, McDonald thought.
Janet Fuller says Garcia wanted to stand out at the dance:
Lake View High School senior Cristal Garcia strikes a pose in her candy wrapper prom dress. [DNAinfo Chicago/Janet Rausa Fuller]
In January, McDonald put out a call on social media for a candy-loving high schooler willing to "take an unconventional approach to her prom dress."
She didn't have to look far. Word quickly got to Kate Sanford-Garcia, who heads the visual arts department at Lake View High School, where McDonald has long been involved as a neighborhood resident.
Sanford-Garcia asked her students if any of them wanted to do it, and Cristal "was the first person who raised her hand," Sanford-Garcia said. "It takes a person who's open-minded and just unique."
Wrigley supplied 300 jumbo and regular-sized bags of Skittles, Garcia's favorite. (The candies apparently make for good dress material, as a British woman proved last fall.)
Over the course of five meetings, Garcia, McDonald and Ashley Reinsmith, McDonald's lead dress designer, worked out the details of the dress.
McDonald and Reinsmith wanted it to be "party-ready" and "unforgettable." The soft-spoken Garcia, whose interests include photography and psychology, wanted that, too. Plus, she said, "I wanted to be comfortable."
Work began in earnest in April. After the time-consuming process of emptying the bags of candy, Reinsmith started cutting and shaping the wrappers, with help from Garcia. The wrappers are glued onto a fabric dress silhouette.
Reinsmith finished the dress last week and had Garcia try it on. The zipper broke, but it's a minor fix, McDonald said. None of them were worried.
Garcia, who lives in Belmont Cragin, said she's prepared for questions and comments from classmates, none of whom have actually seen the dress on her.
On Thursday, Principal Scott Grens had this to say when he chatted with her in the hallway after school: "You're going to look ... sweet," Grens said, with a joking nudge of his elbow. "What are you going to do for shoes?"
After the dance, McDonald said she'll make any other necessary repairs to the dress. It'll be Garcia's to keep.
Her date, Alex, a junior, "thinks it's super cool," Garcia said, so much so that he asked McDonald if she would make him a candy-wrapper suit.
McDonald declined, but she is making him a matching cummerbund and bow tie.
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