This gallery is taken from the spring 2026 issue of Dazed. Buy a copy of the magazine here.

For high school students in South Africa, prom – or the “matric ball” – represents the most aspirational rite of passage of their teenage years. More than just a graduation celebration, the event gestures toward adulthood while also promising to fulfil a unique fantasy. “It’s this one night where you can show people exactly who you want to be. You can be anybody. They feel like celebrities,” explains photographer Alice Mann, whose latest photobook, The Night Is Young, presents poignant, life-affirming portraits from graduation dances at high schools in Johannesburg, Pretoria and her birthplace of Cape Town.

Every detail of clothing, hair and make-up is meticulously planned and executed. Police often close off roads surrounding schools to make way for students arriving for their red-carpet moment. “One student arrived on a horse and cart,” says Mann, who shot the series between 2018 and 2023. “And there was another whose dad was in a motorcycle gang, so he drove her on the back of his bike, preceded by the whole gang.” It’s an opportunity to indulge in the kind of theatricality and glamour that isn’t part of everyday life. Mann’s portraits show the boys in sharp, often flamboyant tailoring, while “some of the girls channel a Kardashian energy” and others “just want to be princesses”. One student, pictured below, opted for a more fantastical look, arriving at the dance wearing elaborate angel wings. “It’s about making an absolute statement,” the photographer explains.

Moving between formal portraits and febrile post-dinner party shots, where South African house music is “blasting” and decorum is discarded along with high heels, Mann’s pictures distil the hopefulness and jubilation of a feverishly anticipated evening. “The tension of the whole night is just released onto the dancefloor,” says the photographer. While prom offers students the chance to enact a fantasy, it’s also grounded in a very real sense of achievement. “Having reached the final year of high school and knowing you’re going to graduate is massive,” says Mann. “You’ve made it; you didn’t drop out. You could be the first in your family to do that.”

Not every student who graduates from high school can afford to attend their matric ball, as celebrations become ever more “extra” due, Mann suspects, to the influence of social media. A guiding principle of The Night Is Young was to reflect and acknowledge the complexities and inequalities of contemporary South Africa, but Mann wanted to approach this from a more oblique – and optimistic – angle than she usually sees in representations of the country’s youth culture. “It is still a place with a lot of divisions and gaps in terms of wealth, but this was a softer way of exploring that,” she explains. “Students feel like anything is possible on these nights; it’s very beautiful. The general feeling is one of so much hope and joy – they all feel their best and all their families are there to celebrate them. Capturing that energy was something I wanted to do, in terms of exploring South African imagery with more positive associations.”

The Night Is Young is out on March 12 via IDEA.