DIRTY DANCERS: Among the popular dresses this prom season are risqué numbers from designers La Femme, Boutique (below) and Panoply (above). (Caitlin Thorne Hersey)
Prom is going porn this year.
The days of dressing like a lady are over — with teens preferring to parade around at their first big dance looking more like strippers than schoolgirls.
The hot trend is slutty chic — with cleavage-revealing frocks, bellybutton-baring gowns and dresses made of barely enough fabric to make a washcloth.
“I can’t believe that mothers let high-school girls buy these dresses for prom,” said one sales associate at Saks Fifth Avenue, embarrassed to be selling a collection of prom dresses that were more appropriate for the main stage at Scores than a high-school gym.
Nathan Vaknin, manager of Fiesta Ladies Fashion, a dress store on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, said, “For prom this year, girls want short and poofy or long, tight-fitting, with everything cut out — the sides are gone, the back is gone, the front is basically gone.
“Personally, I think it’s too much, but we sell whatever puts money in our pocket,” he said.
“The parents might say no at first, but I don’t think anyone can convince these girls to get a dress besides the one they really want.”
At Saks, one of the most popular prom dresses this season is a $380 floor-length leopard print La Femme dress that is backless and practically frontless with a diamond cut out between the breasts.
Girls are also coveting a Panoply dress with the sides cut out and a plunging neckline that sells for $370 on the Web.
Perhaps the most shocking dress available this year is the Nadia, designed by Boutique. The stretch-satin dress — whose front dips to just above the pubic bone — retails online for $349.
The city Department of Education doesn’t impose a dress code for proms. It’s up to each principal to make a judgment call about acceptable attire.
At Christopher Columbus HS in The Bronx, Principal Lisa Maffei-Fuentes inspects every dress herself.
“I check all of the dresses to make sure their body parts are covered,” Maffei-Fuentes said. “They’re not allowed to wear anything where their breasts are exposed. It can’t be very short, and their rear ends can’t be exposed.”
Maffei-Fuentes has the girls show her pictures of their dresses before the big day. On May 26, when the school will hold its prom, Maffei-Fuentes will be at the door to make sure no outfits are breaking her rules.
“I watch them walk in,” she said. “If they’re wearing something inappropriate, I send them home or we fix the dress with pins, thread and needles.”