ARLINGTON, Mass.—“The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” now has a real-life version: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Prom Dress.
The last time many of Catherine Malatesta’s friends saw her, she was wearing a huge smile and the deep blue, shimmery dress at her junior prom. Four days later, battling a rare cancer, she went into the hospital and never left.
Now, four of Catherine’s friends are honoring her by wearing that dress to their own proms, a gracious gesture her mother named after “Traveling Pants.” And, like the pair of jeans in the books and movies that magically fits four teenage girls of different shapes and sizes, Catherine’s dress works for all of them, with only temporary hemming for two of the girls.
“When each girl tried it on, it fit each one of them beautifully despite all having very different body types,” said Catherine’s mother, Jennifer Goodwin. “It is uncanny.”
There won’t be any scheduling conflicts; the girls go to different schools, and their proms are on different dates. Another friend of Catherine’s already has asked to wear the dress to her prom next year, while Catherine’s seventh-grade cousin has asked Goodwin to save it for her prom, years down the road.
“It’s a way of keeping her with me,” said Jillian Danton, 17, who wore the dress to her junior prom at Arlington High School in April. “All of us being able to have this piece of her is healing.”
