A Dress Story - She said yes to 3 Dresses!

A Tale of Five Dresses
The Challenge: Find a dress for the formal winter dance that will meet Mom's standards, school's standards and a teenager's fashion standards.  Oh yeah, and while it's a whole other story - do this in two weeks.  While you are at it, secure all accessories, make up, nail appointments, and get the proper alterations in said two weeks too.

Not hard at all.

To be fair Julia started shopping earlier this year.  She went with friends but didn't really like anything.  Of course she didn't follow my rule of trying on even the dresses you don't like because you never know.  We did find a dress that many people agreed was the dress - except Julia.  I get it.  She later pointed out that four people wore that very dress last year, and she wanted something different.

One of our biggest challenges is the plunging neckline.  Halter styles are popular right now, and many of them have plunging necklines.  Julia cannot visualize having fabric sewn in to fix that, so that eliminates many of them.

After hours at the malls, we resorted to online searching.  Julia found a dress she loves (we will call this dress 1), but we could not get it on time.  We finally agreed that we would find something else, and that to avoid this situation next year, I would order dress 1 after I have recovered financially from this dance :) Julia found a navy dress (dress 2) that I thought was really plain, even for her, and wanted to order it.  Because we wouldn't have the dress in our hands until a week before the dance, I convinced her to order a second dress (dress 3) in case that one was an epic fail.  Andy, Savannah, and I had all liked another navy dress better, so we ordered that one (dress 3) too.  Dress 3 arrived first, and we knew immediately that it was a no-go.  The neckline would need an alteration. Julia was so uncomfortable with the neckline that she never even let Andy see her in the dress. Savannah's roommates nailed the best description of the dress - pretty but matronly and even has a Morticia Adams vibe- OUCH!  Dress 3 could only be returned for store credit or exchanged, so we revisited the site looking at new arrivals and found not one, not two, but three contenders.  After much, much wrestling and sending pictures to friends and family members for a vote, Julia chose two (dress 4 and dress 5) of the three dresses.  We placed the order and returned the Adams family dress. 

The two replacement dresses arrived before the original navy one did.  Julia really liked them both.  In fact, she then wrestled with which one to wear to the dance.  We weighed the fact that dress 5 would need the neckline sewn up because it was too low and would need a slit sewn together.  It had two slits, and she found that to be "slutty" looking.  I just found it odd.  The slit that would remain would need to be lowered, and the tulle skirt and liner would need to be hemmed. Dress 4  only needed a hem and possibly a little bit of work on the neckline.  However, the breadth of the needed alterations did not make the decision.  Even though the theme is not really of concern for Julia,  dress 5  fit the dance theme, A Night in Hollywood, better, so Andy cast the deciding vote on that.

I spent almost the rest of the entire day working on that dress. I sewed up a slit, didn't like the heavy thread with the fabric, ripped it out, resewed, was unhappy with it and ripped it out again.  I then sewed up the wrong slit and was happy with the result until I realized my mistake and had to rip it out and start again on the correct one.  GRR!  I sewed up the neckline, found a spot that looked off after that alteration and corrected it and then we took it the seamstress for the hem.  Julia is slightly disappointed that it has to be hemmed.  It falls several inches onto the floor, so it has to be done, but the dress will lose a pretty scalloped design as a result of the new hem.  Julia pointed out that she realizes they have to make the dresses for the tall girls, but she just wished that design had been higher.  I pointed out that no, they don't have to make the dresses for the taller girls.  They can make dresses for girls of average height and girls who are taller and expand the sizing options to average and tall options.  

I will state again how frustrating it is that a dress needs so much work to make everyone happy.  There's really no reason for it in 2020, but I digress.

So what of the other dresses?  We kept them both.  She's a sophomore, and there will be two formal dances each of the next two years.  She likes all of them, and not one of them cost as much as my senior prom dress did some ahem decades ago.  All combined, they cost only about $25-$30 more than it cost to rent a tux for Zach for his senior prom.  Yes, there are other expenses -namely nails and accessories.  She already has shoes she can wear with all three options, and yes, we will still order the dress she loved once I recover from this dance.

Just a side note, dress 2 is prettier than I expected.  She's not a fan of navy because the guys typically wear black suits, so she thinks that's a tacky color combination.  That dress can only be returned for store credit, and we are not likely to shop with that company again, so we will keep it, and she may very well wear it. A bonus is that it needs little alteration and could probably work as a back up in the event of a last minute fail on another dress. If she doesn't wear it, she may have a friend who does.  I like that next year the girls may have enough dresses between them to shop in each others' closets, and they may have jobs to pay for their own dresses :)

So to recap:
dress 1 - a possible (likely) purchase once everything settles down

dress 2  -a keeper, back up, may or may not be worn, but the return isn't worth it

dress 3-the matronly/Adams family dress - returned in exchange for dresses 4 and/or 5

dress 4- hard one about which to make a decision, will likely be worn for another event, so a keeper (side note - this one sold out the day after we bought it)

dress 5 -the dress for this dance

You might have guessed that the highlight colors are small clues to the dress colors, but definitely not exact.


Stay tuned for "The Reveal"