Calling all Potterheads! A teenager from Prairie Grove, Arkansas has out-Hermioned Hermione Granger.
Hailey Skoch has been a huge fan of the Harry Potter series since the moment she cracked open the first book in the series. Her parents were going through a divorce at the time, and the recurring themes of family and unity were a salve for her wounded heart.
Now that she’s 18, Hailey has channeled her love of all things Harry Potter into the stuff of viral fame. Not only that, but the positive attention she’s receiving over the custom prom dress she created using 12,000 pages cut from two volumes of the books may have changed the course of her life forever.
It doesn’t get more magical than that, does it?
After deciding to think outside the box and make her own gown, Hailey found some busted old volumes with broken spines and missing pages at her local thrift shop. Then, she spent four days folding, pressing, stapling, and pressing the pages into an intricate fan pattern to adorn the dress. Naturally, she had to binge-watch the movies while she worked.
“I was binge-watching the whole Harry Potter series so you can’t just get halfway through and wait a week and watch the rest,” she explained. Hailey also watched the two “Fantastic Beast” movies. Now that’s dedication!
Hailey admitted it was “kind of creepy” how everyone’s heads turned at once when she walked into the prom wearing her self-made gown.
“It was completely insane,” she recalled. “I just kind of entered and everyone was kind of doing their own thing. One person saw me, and then another.”
When she shared pictures of the dress on Instagram, the post blew up.
“I made my dress!!” she wrote. “I wore it to prom pictures and wow. I was not expecting all the support and compliments. Thanks for all the love guys. I’m obsessed with this look and it was made from the books of my childhood, Harry Potter. For me this is a piece of art about growth and transition into my adult self as I wear the words that brought me so much peace in my youth.”
Next year, Hailey will attend the University of Arkansas on a scholarship. She had planned to study psychology, but after the huge success of her dress, now she’s considering studying fashion design. “Accio new life direction!”
