Long Island student creates a dress out of duct tape for chance at $15,000 scholarship
The prom dress that high school junior Lien Tan created in her Plainview bedroom is too stiff and sticky to actually wear to a dance — but she's hoping it will win her a $15,000 college scholarship.
Tan, 17, is one of five dress finalists in Duck Tape brand’s 25th annual Stuck at Prom Scholarship Contest for the wedding-dress inspired, floor-length gown she made using rolls of white and gray duct tape. This is the second year Tan entered the contest; there are also five finalists in a tuxedo category vying for their own $15,000 prize.
"I think I probably used 37 rolls," Tan said Thursday, and she estimates she spent between $150 and $200. She used her Cricut cutting machine to make layers of designs for the fantasy-style dress that she’d been planning for more than a year and pulled together in her bedroom over a four-day span. The dress is a nod to swans — which she considers to be symbols of romance and elegance — and is decorated with duct-tape feathers.
Tan, a rising senior at Syosset High School, wore the dress once to take photos to submit online, but she isn’t required to wear it to a prom. "It would definitely be uncomfortable to wear to prom. It’s very stiff," she said. And it would be quite sweaty in the heat, she added.
High school junior Lien Tan's duct tape prom dress is a finalist in the Stuck at Prom contest, vying for a $15,000 scholarship. Credit: Duck Brand
Tan said she learned from her struggles with the dress structure on last year’s entry — she said the dress ultimately didn’t hold up because it had too many layers. "It just fell apart at the end," she said. Tan found out on June 20 that she was chosen as a finalist this time from close to 150 entries. That day also happened to be her 17th birthday. "I was screaming for joy," she says.
The grand prize dress will be determined by online voting through July 9, so Tan is launching a TikTok and Instagram campaign and said she hopes Long Islanders will also vote for her at stuckatprom.com. People can vote once every 24 hours for their favorite dress and tuxedo, and the winners will be announced around July 16, according to a news release from the Ohio-based Duck Tape company.
This isn’t the first time a Long Islander has been a Stuck At Prom finalist — last year Jessica Ong, then a rising senior at Great Neck North High School, was a finalist for her elaborate butterfly-themed dress with wings using dark blue, teal, white, gold and black tape. Runners-up each win a $1,000 college scholarship.
Beth Whitehouse writes about families, parenting and great things to do with the kids on Long Island. She’s been a Newsday editor and shared a 1997 Newsday staff Pulitzer Prize for coverage of the crash of TWA Flight 800.
