The door to Thea Niall’s house opens to reveal a whirl of shimmering sequins, selfies, shrieks of delight and the excited tap of high heels. The peaty scent of makeup mingles in the hallway with the sharp fizz of champagne and hairspray.
It’s the night of Niall’s year 12 formal and the Northcote high school captain has invited her friends and their parents to her house to get ready. Photos are snapped, dresses adjusted and everyone is chatting about what the big night signifies and how much effort has gone into it.
High school formals are a rite of passage for Australian students – a marker of the shift between teenage years and adulthood. For many, it’s the first time they’ll attend an event like this; the first time they’ll wear a gown or a suit. And, like any big event, it can’t help but come with pressures – both financial and cultural.
In February, one of the first things that newly minted co-captain Yasmin Elsakawy had to do was make a Facebook group to prevent any two attendees from wearing the same dress to the formal – then six months away.
“Everyone posts a photo of their dress so there are no double-ups,” Elsakawy says. “Within 10 minutes, there were two posts of people’s dresses. People had been planning their dresses for some time!”
At Northcote, the formal is “for the students, by the students”, organised by the four school captains and envisaged as “a way for students to celebrate the connection they’ve built over the last six years together,” says co-captain Alex Qu. The students ran bake sales to fundraise for collective costs, like a professional photographer, and organised the decorations and communications with other students themselves.
While most schools have a formal for their final-year students, some host them for students as young as year 9. As a mixed-gender public school, Northcote doesn’t allow kids from other schools to attend – common for public schools, differentiating them from private and single-gender schools, where the question of which table to join is complicated by who you intend to invite as your date.
For students at private and single-gender schools, heading to multiple school formals in a year is a marker of popularity – and privilege. Formals come with a hefty price tag, even for students who try to keep the costs down.
“I think it’s really key to note about Northcote high, we are a really high socioeconomic area … the kids here are incredibly privileged,” says Niall. “There are girls who are renting their dresses and girls who are buying really expensive dresses … Renting is very common but it’s not frowned upon.”
“There’s obviously a lot more pressure on the girls,” Elsakawy adds. “There’s a lot more pressure that this is going to be your peak look. Everyone sees you every day but this is the time to be like, ‘here I am!’ … I think there’s an expectation to get one or two things done professionally – hair, makeup, or nails or a tan. I don’t know anyone who’s not getting one of those done professionally.”
Niall and Elsakawy run roughly through their expenses, which they acknowledge were mostly borne by their parents, with some exceptions.
The ticket for the event itself – a sit-down dinner and dancing at a venue – was $110. They estimate the average cost of a dress at $300. If it needs alteration: $40. Shoes: $80. Hair: $100. Make-up: $150. Fake tan: $50. Nails: $70. Limousine: $33 each for 14 people. Already we’ve hit $933, a figure both girls find startling, and we haven’t even got to the afterparty.
The costs aren’t necessarily lower for the boys. Qu bought his suit, tie and pocket square at a significant markdown from a factory outlet, and they still cost $474. He got a haircut – $55 – but wore dress shoes he already owned. With the ticket included, he still spent some $640 on the event.
Students’ willingness to think outside the box can help with the financial burden. When James Tulk went looking for a suit, he was put off by salespeople who told him the kind of loose fit he was after wasn’t in fashion and the colours he liked “weren’t suitable” for a winter event.
“I’d rather be comfortably out of fashion than uncomfortably in fashion,” Tulk says. So he started looking in op-shops – and found the perfect suit in grey pinstripe for $35.
But what about the kids who are struggling to find any money to put towards the big day?
“How it started was, one person asked me to help,” says Sam Oakes. “How it’s going is, last year I fitted out 1,374 kids for their formal.”
For six years, Oakes has run The Formal Project Inc, a Sydney-based community initiative that outfits students who can’t afford to attend their formal, entirely for free. The store, in Minto Mall, has an op-shop at the front that helps the organisation raise funds and a secluded entrance at the back where kids can come in discreetly.
“Kids go on to our Facebook page and make an appointment, so we don’t book more than two kids from the same school at the same time,” Oakes says.
“They come in pretty nervous, but they go out pretty damn excited - they’ve picked their dream dress, their jewellery, their bag, shoes; we’ve even got a stock of makeup and personal care items. Everything that they need for their formal is here and they don’t pay a single cent.”
Video appointments are available for those who can’t attend in person, and Oakes’ background in disability and mental health support helped her set up systems for kids whose needs were other than financial – like getting an Auslan interpreter in to assist a deaf student and supporting a boy whose disabilities made clothes shopping challenging.
The service has seen substantial growth partly thanks to word of mouth, Oakes says, but also need. “People are really, really struggling. And who doesn’t want to send their kids to their formal, looking and feeling their best? That’s every parent’s dream.”
While Thea Niall and her co-captains tried to make the Northcote formal as accessible as possible, she still thinks there’s room to do more.
“I know that a lot of teachers who were organising felt the same way,” she says. “If you asked any person going, they’re not saying they want it to be luxurious – they just want to party with their year. They want a celebration. Because they deserve it.”
