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E-mail Home > Blogs > Get on the Bus > Archives > 2008 > August > 09 > Entry
Sewing champ helps police the prom
(Sunny Hickey makes a coat for competition at the Ohio State Fair)
Sunny Hickey slid the seam of the coat she was making through the rumble of the 1972 Viking sewing machine she’s been using exclusively for more than three decades.
When she goes to her 41st Ohio State Fair this month in the clothing construction division, some of Hickey’s competitors will make their entries with programmable sewing machines that can cost up to $1,000.
“It’s not computerized and I’d just as soon keep it that way,” Hickey said of her well-worn machine. “I am a firm believer that it is the person driving the machine that makes the difference.”
Through the years, Hickey has won more state fair ribbons than she can count. This year’s entry is a reversible coat.
“The state fair has changed dramatically,” she said. “They’ve reduced the number of style show classes from six for spring and summer wear and six for fall or winter wear to two classes — one for coats or outerwear and one for any other garment.”
Over time, fewer women are competing in sewing. The decline has Hickey worried that her passion will become a lost art.
“You could see as more women went to work that unfortunately sewing has been dying,” she said. “Lots of women are still involved, but they are primarily in knitting.”
Yet, sewing skills are as valuable as ever — so much so that Hickey has become something of a celebrity as local Catholic proms. When it comes to prom dresses, she is part cop and part rescue squad.
For two local high schools, Hickey accompanies the chaperones at the door, ready to repair dress disasters or impose greater modesty.
“They get the message, you might say, just by having yours truly standing in the wings as, I hate to use the term, the ‘enforcer,’” Hickey said.
In the early years of chaperoning the Alter High School prom, Sunny Hickey used her sewing wizardry mostly for emergency repairs for busted spaghetti straps, ripped halter tops, torn dress vents and split zippers.
Badly made dresses — that was the cause of most of the trouble. But over time the root of the problems shifted to the dress design.
Plunging necklines, strapless bras, badly placed sheer fabric and lots of bare skin — that’s what Hickey spends the bulk of prom night on now. For the last two years, Hickey has been a mainstay at the Alter and Chaminade-Julienne high school proms with pins, thread and two-sided tape, ready to patch up dresses that don’t meet the dress code.
“The movie industry has been pushing the envelope and a lot of young ladies feel to be popular, that’s what they should wear,” Hickey said. “But to defend the young ladies, the fashion industry markets what sells. They make it very difficult for moms who want to find their daughters a decent dress that is not risque.”
Hickey, an accomplished amateur clothes maker, has been winning ribbons for sewing at the Ohio State Fair for decades. This month, she is competing in her 41st state fair.
But she came to her prom duties by chance. Her first chaperone duties were as a parent when her son Steve was an Alter senior in 1986. When the school asked her back the next year, she packed a “survival kit” with items she wished she’d had the prior year — coins for pay phone calls, band-aids for small injuries and especially sewing supplies for repairing dress disasters.
The next year, Alter asked her to come back and it became an annual event. She got connected with Chaminade Julienne when a friend from St. Henry Catholic parish heard about her success maintaining modesty at Alter and begged her to do the same for her daughter’s prom at Chaminade.
At both schools, Hickey said, the dress problems have improved.
“I really think it helps just by having an enforcer there and knowing if they came in with the wrong kind of dress someone is going to make it appropriate,” she said. “They were more careful in their dress selection this year. They shopped harder.”
Even if “dress enforcer” is a great idea, Hickey is not looking to add more schools to her schedule next spring. She views her prom work as part of her commitment to her church. The only other sewing she does outside of her family is for vestments for priest or decorations at church.
Instead, she’d like to see more women rekindle sewing skills so they can use them in similarly creative ways. Today’s clothes are often cheaply made, which is the main cause of prom disasters, she said.
With basic designs, Hickey has earned many a state fair ribbon. She likes to start with a simple style and experiment with different fabrics and trims. A client once told her that Princess Diana had the same dress pattern made 23 times with different fabric and trim.
“At least in her casual clothes, she had the same design made up in four or five color combinations,” Hickey said. “I suppose she liked the way it fit and felt. You hang on to what’s good on you. You get that pattern and the sky is the limit for what you can do with it.”
The Survival Kit
When she returned to chaperone her second Alter High School prom in 1987, Sunny Hickey packed an “survival kit” of items she might need to help students with problems that she has used every year since. Over time, the kit has changed. Twenty years ago, she packed quarters for kids who needed to make phone calls. Now nearly every student carries a cell phone. And back then, it was OK to offer a student a pain reliever. Now school rules prevent administering even over-the-counter drugs to kids. In the 2008 kit, Hickey now carries two-sided tape and nude-colored knit to patch up dresses that are too revealing, a problem the prom didn’t have in 1987.
Sunny Hickey’s prom kit in 1987:
band-aids
safety pins
pin cushion
needles
threads
quarters
Tylenol
Sunny Hickey’s prom kit in 2008:
band-aids
safety pins
pin cushion
needles
threads
two-sided tape
antibacterial ointment
nude colored knit
(Image credit: Lisa Powell, DDN)
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