Prama.(The Talk of the Town)(Drama during prom season)

Not long ago, Steven Cox, one half of the eccentric menswear label Duckie Brown, was checking the e-mail account he shares with his partner, Daniel Silver. He came across a message titled "A Not So Ridiculous Proposition":

My name is Robert William Asch. I am a senior in high school with a love for rock and roll, girls, and your collections. . . . Here is my spiel: how lovely . . . would it be to dress a teen in Duckie Brown for Prom? . . . At some ridiculously mediocre hotel in North Jersey? . . . Or am I crazy?

"Steven was like, 'I think there's something special about this kid,' " Silver recalled the other day. The designers slept on it and then wrote back: "Dear Robert, No you are not crazy!!!" They asked for his measurements ("six feet with an indie boy frame"; 38 jacket, 31 x 32 pants) and more details about the prom (first week of June; Ridgewood High School; music by D.J. Krazy Kat at the Marriott at Glenpointe, followed by house parties on the Jersey Shore). They had some reservations--"We were thinking, Oh my God, this is a trap," Cox said. "The guy's going to come here, and he's sixteen, and there's going to be some sexual-harassment thing"--so they asked to speak to his parents. "We talked to the father, a bond trader, and he was cool," Cox said. "So why not?"

On a recent afternoon, the designers were waiting in their West Village studio, which is also their living room, bedroom, production room, and kitchen. Racks of clothes lined the walls, and in the center of the room there was an "inspiration table" piled with postcards, gold buttons, and a china pineapple.

"You didn't have any friends in high school, did you, Daniel?" Cox asked.

"Don't be mean," Silver said.

The doorbell rang. It was Robert Asch: skinny, with buzzed hair, loose jeans, and an iPod attached to enormous headphones. "I'm Robert," he said, sticking out his hand.