Fifteen and Fabulous!

Quince Fashion Fifteen and Fabulous!
No one does debutante style quite like Quince Girls.

An elaborate evening dress. A pair of high-heeled sandals. A touch of lipstick. A hairdo fit for a movie star. When a girl marks her quinceañera, she not only celebrates becoming an adult, she gets to dress like one too, perhaps for the first time. Though her everyday look may be jeans and flip flops or a soccer uniform, a Quince Girl is transformed into a glamorous young woman for this red-letter day.

Fashion fit for a princess
An elaborate evening dress. A pair of high-heeled sandals. A touch of lipstick. A hairdo fit for a movie star. When a girl marks her quinceañera, she not only celebrates becoming an adult, she gets to dress like one too, perhaps for the first time. Though her everyday look may be jeans and flip flops or a soccer uniform, a Quince Girl is transformed into a glamorous young woman for this red-letter day. Think a fancy ball gown, sparkling tiara, upswept hair and glowing makeup.

“It’s one of the biggest events in a girl’s life, sometimes even bigger than a wedding,” says Lisa Chang, vice president at Mary’s/P.C. Mary’s, Inc, a Houston, Texas, dress company that caters to many quinceañeras. “These girls want to look majestically beautiful, like princesses.”

Traditional styles and modern wiles
Both tradition and trends affect what the quinceañera and her corte de honor (court of honor) choose to wear for the occasion. Girls sometimes still don a customary white dress, which is thought to signify purity, much like a wedding gown. And the full skirts popular with quinceañeras today seem to echo the lavish styles worn when Carlota, the Austrian empress of Mexico from 1864 to 1867, promoted fancy-dress balls and dancing to European-style orchestras.

But 21st-century styles also influence the look of Latina debuts. Chambelanes sport collarless tuxedos that seem ripped from the Hollywood red carpet. Quince Girls put their damas in the hippest colors and styles. “I think the fun part of the quinceañera is the chance to dress up,” says Sylvia Solheim of Quinceanera-Boutique.com. “The girls and their families are looking for things that’ll add to the day, that’ll help the girls feel beautiful.”

Jennifer Barger is a Washington, D.C.-based fashion and travel writer. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post, National Geographic Traveler, Playbill and Country Home. She is a senior editor at Where Washington Magazine.