My youngest brother recently had his Matric dance for which I made his date a corsage. The florist was flooded with orders and so I made do with some pearlescent faux flowers.
I covered the ugly elastic which formed the band with some white lace, gathered such that it could stretch with the elastic. In each stitch where it was gathered I put a pearl bead.
To add some volume and a touch of silver (to match her jewellery) I sewed in some ribbon folds.
I had bought some mini carnations to use but they ended up competing with the fake flowers, and so used some non-competitive Jip to fill up and visually soften the corsage.
The organic with the subtle colour spectrum of the fake flowers made for a very pleasing friendship.
The real reward came not from how well I had or hadn't executed the nit-picking details or balance of old, new, and organic, but rather from the delight in the wearers reaction at the thought of having been given a corsage. She had romanticized about receiving one to her mother and had thought it too old fashioned to be possible.
I am glad that although there were not real flowers as the main feature, what is there is a keepsake which will last longer, with the newly added value of association/connotation. It "is" the Matric dance.
