Thrifty Teens Say Yes To The Prom Dress For Less From Shoreline Consignment Shops, Store Owners Say
SHORELINE — Dressing to the nines is a long tradition for prom and can come with an eye-watering price tag.
Teens can say 'Yes' to the dress for less by shopping for their gown at shoreline thrift and consignment stores, shop owners say.
When shopping for a prom dress, as important as price, is sustainability, originality and individuality for some girls, said Cathy White, owner of Stork and Fashion Exchange in Westbrook.
Ellie Franzoni, 22, agreed. She recently donated four prom gowns at Clinton's Fringe Modern & Vintage.
"I donated because I knew I would never wear those Dresses again, and maybe someone else will," the Clinton resident said in a text message. "The fashion industry contributes to so much waste and pollution, and thrifting is a great way to shop sustainably."
She recalled buying a thrift gown when she attended a friend's prom in 2017.
"I thought it was silly to spend so much on a dress I would wear only once," she said. "I think it's a great idea to thrift prom dresses and Kara has a really great selection at Fringe."
White said she sees gowns come and go from her store multiple times.
"I've actually had some girls buy a prom gown here and then the next season, turn around and we sell it again," she said.
She also said that she finds it less stressful shopping in a consignment or thrift stores.
"It doesn't have the high pressure of the large prom stores," she said. "It's more relaxed in consignment."
Also, "if you go to the prom shops, you're going to have a lot of the exact same style gown."
Once teens find their perfect eveningwear at a neighborhood thrift store, it can be one-stop shopping, for shoes, a bag, necklace and earrings, "If they're lucky enough to find what they want," said Patty Sullivan, general manager of Hole in The Wall.
"It's always hit or miss," she said, standing in the thrift store chock-full of items for resale. "But when they hit it right, they hit it right."
The Hole in the Wall in Guilford, a nonprofit that supports the ABC House in town, has been offering prom wear for 15 years; items can be donated or consigned.
"For a dress you're only going to wear once, why spend hundreds of dollars?" said Sullivan.
"You could spend $25-$30 here and then go and buy another dress for after your prom," she said.
"Some of the dresses are consigned and look really expensive," said Sullivan.
These dresses, she said, are still "well under $100."
Choices range from a simple gray flowing dress, with a pleated bodice; a gray, black and pink silk frock, belted with the same fabric, to a fancy ecru gown, topped with a sparkling bodice, flowing into a tulle skirt and a jazzy red sequined gown with spaghetti straps and a mermaid tulle skirt.
At the Stork Exchange, perusing the dresses, shoppers might find some with tags still on them.
"Part of that is they might be COVID prom gowns," White said.
"So, they were from a couple of years ago during COVID when proms were cancelled," she noted.
All the store owners marvel at the vast selection at their boutiques.
"We don't know what's going to come in, we get what we get," said Sullivan.
In Clinton, Kara Fillion opened Fringe Modern & Vintage in September 2020 and had her sights set on selling prom gowns from the get-go.
"I have wanted to offer affordable dresses for high schoolers who can't afford to spend $300 to $800 on a prom dress," the boutique owner said.
"I also wanted to offer some unique styles, some vintage and designer styles, for people that are excited about prom and want to have a special dress for their occasion," she said.
White echoed this.
"The girls that come here, they're not always looking for the sexy, glitzy gown," she said. "Some are looking for simple, not every girl wants to have all the bling."
Fillion has transformed a room in the rear of her Clinton boutique to showcase the gowns, which are priced from $30 to $50.
The narrow, long room is cordoned off from the rest of the shop with shimmery steamers and a bright colorful, lighted OPEN sign.
"I wanted to make it more special," Fillion said, standing outside the room.
"I think when people go to a boutique, they have the experience of all the dresses lined up and the mirror and somewhere to stand to look at yourself," she said. "I have heels for people to try on."
"It's more of an experience," Fillion said.
All neatly lined up are dresses that range from a one-shoulder black tiered, ruffle dress covered with gold sparkles; a red halter gown with an gemstone detail on the bodice and straps; vintage styles and dresses in all colors of the rainbow in sizes 0 to 20.
The formalwear comes in a variety of styles including floor length and shorter.
She talked about what the girls are looking for.
"Kids are being a lot more exploratory with their fashion statements," she said.
"So, it could go from bedazzled, jeweled dresses to puffy sleeves to floor length to miniskirts and mini dresses," she said. "People like to wear high heels, but some people like to wear sneakers."
Stepping out of the designated prom area there is a table of jewelry and bowties and bolos for the gentlemen.
In Westbrook, the dresses can be a bit pricier and some still have tags on.
A Mac Duggal A-line lace dress, with a plunging neckline and belted waist is priced at $300, a sleek, black LaFemme gown with a cut-out at the midriff is priced at $100 and a fitted midnight blue floor-length, with an open back, retails for $400 and is $165.99 at this consignment boutique.
Sullivan said the Hole in the Wall celebrates, along with the buyer, when the perfect dress is purchased.
"When somebody finds something that they look great in, it's wonderful because we try to make it real special," said Sullivan.
"We love it when somebody finds a dress and looks fantastic in it," she said. "It's wonderful. It's really great. We get excited for them."
Fringe Modern & Vintage, 31 East Main St., Clinton, 860-575-9043; [email protected]; fringect.Com; Facebook
Hole in the Wall, 35 Boston St., Unit 4, Guilford; 203-453-2088; Guilfordabc.Org; [email protected]; Facebook Hole in the Wall Consignments; Instagram @holeinthewallabc
Stork and Fashion Exchange, 1430 Boston Post Road, Westbrook, 860-399-4636; donotbuyretail.Com; Facebook Stork and Fashion Exchange; Instagram @storkfashionexchange
Contact Sarah Page Kyrcz at [email protected]
A Teenager Revealed Her Homemade Cinderella-inspired Prom Dress On Stage And TikTok Users Approve
© @satellite4moon/TikTok TikToker @satellite4moon's Cinderella-inspired prom dress video is reminiscent of the iconic dress reveal in "Hunger Games." @satellite4moon/TikTokA teenager posted a video revealing her homemade dress on TikTok on April 22, and users are amazed.
In the video, 18-year-old TikToker @satellite4moon can be seen walking onto the stage in a plain, brown dress, before tugging on a string while spinning to unveil a Cinderella-inspired blue satin dress underneath.
The TikTok has more than 5.7 million views and a million likes as of April 27, and users are fawning over her transforming dress in the comments.
"Katniss Everdeen in real life," read a comment with almost 30,000 likes. The comment makes reference to the iconic "Mockingjay dress" in "The Hunger Games: Catching Fire." In the scene referenced, the protagonist Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, spins in her wedding gown which catches fire and transforms into an ashy gray dress.
In the comments of another video, @satellite4moon confirmed that she "made the entire thing" by herself.
As prom season approaches, other Gen Z TikTokers have been sharing videos of themselves making their own dresses.
TikToker @bluexviibes documented her whole dress-making process in a video, which has over 540,000 likes as of April 27.
From cutting out the fabric pattern to stitching additional gemstones by hand, she displayed the effort that went into the project and reveals the homemade mermaid dress she prepared for prom.
Another TikToker @bleucouturee took users behind the scenes of her project in six videos, from unboxing the fabric to the final reveal — a stunning silver skirt with a mermaid silhouette, and beautiful rhinestones sitting atop illusion fabric for the upper half.
The Not-So-Sexy Origins Of The Miniskirt
Mary Quant's candy-colored fashions so successfully defined the "London Look" of the Swinging '60s that it's hard to believe the designer outlived her heyday by several decades, dying yesterday at the age of 93. Her passing—at a time when reproductive rights are being threatened across the U.S.—feels like not just a loss to the fashion world but also the final salvo of the sexual revolution, which she championed.
Quant is best remembered for the miniskirt, which she popularized, though she did not profess to be its inventor. The French couturier André Courrèges claimed that title after including miniskirts in a collection he showed in Paris in April 1964. But by that time, Quant was already wearing them and selling them in her boutique, Bazaar, which she'd opened in London's bohemian Chelsea neighborhood in 1955. She always insisted that "it wasn't me or Courrèges who invented the miniskirt anyway. It was the girls in the street who did it." Quant likely coined the name, however; her favorite car was the Mini Cooper.
Although the miniskirt was certainly shocking, it was never intended to be sexy; the glamazon in high heels, a push-up bra, and a short, tight skirt is a relatively recent cliché. The miniskirt's point was not to bare women's legs but to liberate them from the long skirts, stockings, garters, girdles, and petticoats of the 1950s. As Quant put it, a woman should to be able to run to catch a bus. The mini was always paired with flats rather than heels, the wearer's legs often covered by boots and colorful tights, which Quant sourced from theatrical costumers. With their simple A-line silhouettes and playful, almost juvenile styling—ruffles, bows, polka dots, Peter Pan collars—Quant's minidresses looked like something you'd find in the children's department.
© Provided by The Atlantic Mario De Biasi / Mondadori / GettyThe mini's power—and danger—lay not in what it revealed but in what it represented: youth itself. The postwar Baby Boom had created a "youthquake"; by the mid-'60s, roughly 40 percent of Britons were under 25, and other countries experienced similarly seismic demographic shifts. After years of wartime austerity that dragged on long after the armistice, the British economy was finally booming too. With military service no longer compulsory, the younger generations had more time as well as more money than teenagers of the past. These social movements found expression in Quant's far-out fashions. "There was a time when every girl under twenty yearned to look like an experienced, sophisticated thirty," Quant wrote in her 1966 autobiography, Quant by Quant. Indeed, they had no choice. "Fashion in the late 1950s was definitely for thirty-year-olds and over," Barbara Hulanicki—the owner of another seminal London boutique, Biba—complained in her own autobiography, From A to Biba. "To get yourself clad in something nice then seemed virtually impossible … There was little specially designed for the young."
That was about to change. Quant's clothes didn't just look different; they challenged the very idea of fashion, making it more individual, upbeat, and democratic than French haute couture. In the anarchic spirit of the time, Quant broke all the rules, using formal fabrics for casual clothes, winter fabric for summer styles, menswear textiles for womenswear, and industrial elements such as vinyl, contrasting topstitching, and visible zipper pulls for streetwear. One red dress came with matching ruffled briefs; Quant's iconic "skinny rib" sweater was inspired by an 8-year-old boy's garment that she tried on for fun. The war had changed women's priorities; although they enjoyed unprecedented opportunities and freedoms, they yearned for simpler times, even going back to childhood.
[Read: When American suffragists tried to 'wear the pants']
Among Quant's many innovations, the mini cast the longest shadow. It was "the most self indulgent, optimistic 'look at me, isn't life wonderful' fashion ever devised," Quant wrote. "It expressed the sixties, the emancipation of women, the Pill and rock 'n' roll … It was the beginning of women's lib." The mini became the uniform of the sexual revolution. The actor Nichelle Nichols, who played the miniskirted chief communications officer Lieutenant Uhura on Star Trek, which premiered in 1966, remembered in her autobiography that "in later years, especially as the women's movement took hold in the seventies, people began to ask me about my costume. Some thought it 'demeaning' for a woman in the command crew to be dressed so sexily." Nichols found this surprising. "Contrary to what many may think today, no one really saw it as demeaning back then. In fact, the miniskirt was a symbol of sexual liberation."
Like Coco Chanel, Quant designed for herself, and she was her own best advertisement. A young, opinionated working woman with an angular Vidal Sassoon five-point bob, she summed up her personal brand of feminism by declaring fashion to be "a tool to compete in life outside the home." Quant studied art education, but instead of pursuing a teaching career as her parents had intended, she opened Bazaar, with the intent of selling other people's clothing designs. But she became frustrated with the available options and began attending evening sewing classes so she could make her own merchandise. Whereas French couturiers such as Courrèges and Yves Saint Laurent used boutique as a synonym for ready-to-wear, British boutique culture was closer to today's fast fashion. Bazaar's stock was constantly refreshed, simply because the clothes sold as fast as Quant could make them.
[Read: The midiskirt, divider of nations]
The miniskirt had some notable detractors. Chanel hated it; so did Cecil Beaton and Norman Hartnell, Queen Elizabeth II's dressmaker. By 1970, even Quant had embraced the maxi skirt, which appealed to her love of Victorian and Edwardian styles; she was a regular visitor to the Victoria and Albert Museum's historic fashion galleries. Her fans grew up, grew out their Sassoon bobs, and began wearing a new, more down-to-earth "London Look": flowing skirts in romantic floral textiles by designers such as Bill Gibb, Ossie Clark, Jean Muir, and Laura Ashley. But the miniskirt never truly went away, and it continues to serve as a barometer of social and sexual mores. Like its fans, Quant's trademark had legs.
