Mums Light Up At Night - 2014

Photo: A mum from an El Paso High School student during their homecoming with Austin High School. High school students in Texas have developed a tradition of wearing elaborate, ever-larger floral pins to their homecoming dances. These pins — many bigger than a dinner plate and covered in artificial flowers, ribbons, and even stuffed animals — are known as mums. The mum is to the corsage kind of as the Baz Luhrman Romeo + Juliet is to Shakespeare. Normally, mums are made with silk flowers (particularly chrysanthemums), trailing ribbons and feather boas that can reach the floor, and trinkets that represent the student's interests and activities. Some mums even have battery-powered lights or play recorded sound through hidden speakers. Typically worn by girls as enormous pins, they can weigh up to 20 lbs. Mums are markers of identity during adolescence, and a unique American folk art tradition. http://jezebel.com/5965232/inside-the-weird-texas-tradition-of-enormous-homecoming-corsages/

Area: Central / El Paso High

Source: El Paso Museum of History

Uploaded by: El Paso Museum of History