Prom dresses, like wedding dresses, are usually a parade of horribles. On the two days in her life that a woman is supposed to look her best, nine times out of ten she ends up looking her worst. At prom otherwise fashion conscious teens suddenly feel the need to squeeze themselves into a sheath of poorly designed taffeta. As brides otherwise stylish women discover a desire to spend a fortune on polyester meringues that are just a bit too similar to the dress of their dreams, envisioned as five year olds with tea towels for veils.

In light of such a sad state of affairs I was delighted when I came across this story detailing how one aspiring fashion designer bucked the trend and constructed her prom dress entirely out of coffee filters.  Eighteen year old Aimee Kick from Missouri is known locally as "the girl with a coffee cup", now the girl with the coffee filter dress her beautifully constructed nod to the amount of time she spends in coffee shops took just a month to make.

She is not the only one to come up with a unique idea for a prom dress, however, Maranda Smith of Cumming, Georgia also knew that she wanted to do something different for prom constructing her dress out of Coke can tabs. The halterneck dress took some 3000 tabs to make, collected over three years and finally woven together with plush ribbon. Unlike Aimee, though, Maranda has no desire to become a fashion designer, heading to college in the fall with hopes of becoming a history teacher.  While we may not see more from her, we look forward to seeing a lot more from Aimee in the future.