Prom Dress Shopping: #TheStruggleIsReal
A dress store on Santee St. in Los Angeles, CA informing customers that they are only allowed to try on one or two dresses. The closer prom gets, the more stores will be filled with shoppers. “Dress stores, especially in LA, get packed the closer it gets to prom. That’s why I bought mine last month.” says Don Lugo Senior, Brizhane Sam.
March 25, 2016
Prom season is here, along with the struggle of trying to find the perfect dress to wear.
Dress shopping is stressful, even when you think you have it all figured out, so it’s best to avoid unnecessary struggles. In a recent article on Trendy Collection, the first three tips say,” Begin your shopping before it is too late, variety is the spice of life, and don’t decide on one color before you have shopped around.”
“Begin your shopping before it is too late” is self explanitory. A fellow classmate, Karen Gomez, shared her own prom dress horror story by saying, “I barely bought my dress last week. I had to take it to get altered, and it’s not going to be done until the day before prom. I regret not going sooner because if there’s something wrong with the alteration, there’s nothing I can do. I learned my lesson.” Knowing that I wait until the last minute for basically everything I do, finding my prom dress had to be a priority. I mean it’s my senior year, it had to be perfect!
When the article’s author writes, “Variety is the Spice of Life” I took that to mean, keep an open mind to different styles when shopping. Today’s popular dress styles include showing more skin with a plunging neckline or a two piece dress, but girls will not be able to wear these due to the Lugo’s dress code policy. This affected my overall shopping experience because I liked many two piece dresses but could not buy them due to the policy. Although the school is being lenient by allowing dresses with open-backs, they should be understanding and know that there are trends that students want to keep up with. So, I had to no choice but to keep an open mind; what other choice did I have?
Personally I made the mistake of going shopping with the mindset of “I want to be prepared and at least have an idea of what color I want before I go shopping”. This mindset only took away from my shopping experience. I was stressed out half of the time because I couldn’t find a dress in the color that I had pictured wearing in my mind. I had committed all the don’ts the article shares.
I learned a lot! Going in with the idea of the perfect dress makes shopping much harder. Prom dress shopping is supposed to be a memorable experience, not a dreadful one. I bought a dress that was completely different from what I had envisioned, and I’m happy I did. It was a well needed learning experience for the future. Why cause yourself unnecessary stress when you can save yourself the #struggle and go shopping early, remember to be open minded, and enjoy what is supposed to be a memorable time.
