Consignment shops and organizations that collect donated prom dresses for girls in need also say they can’t get enough plus size gowns.
When a ‘plus size’ teen shyly approached the ball gowns, harris was tagging stock at her justopened Designer Diva Consignment Boutique in Abington..
Shop owner Kristen Harris went on a mission to collect them after a teen left her store empty handed and in tears. Certainly, there’s not that much made, owner Cat Hutton said. I have companies that I deal with that only carry up to a size 16. Actually the shop in Pine Beach, where Giorno found her dress, called a city of New York Glitz, makes it a priority to stock trendy plus sizes. With about 300 stores around the country, david’s Bridal, estimates half of the company’s ‘prom worthy’ choices come in sizes 16 to 22, with interest in those sizes growing every year, said Marissa Rubinetti, a senior buyer. Online options for ‘plussize’ prom dresses have proliferated in the past decade.
Giorno was not comfortable searching for her dress online, yet many retailers carry few to none in stores and on trend for teens.
Shopping that way for an already difficult fit, gether with restrictive return policies, can feel risky.
Quite a few designers don’t bother making them in larger sizes, prospective customers say. Oftentimes whenever offering a private appointment and free dress from about 40 she’d collected, harris began begging on social media for plussize consignment and hunted down her young customer through Facebook. Seriously. I just couldn’t get her out of my head. She was so sweet, Harris said.
Operation Prom, that offers free donated dresses to girls in need in eight states, has also had to hunt for plus size dresses.
The shortage of donated plussize garments forced her to purchase some.
Only about 700 were size 18 and up, she said, noel D’Allacco. Ok in about 7000 gently used dresses and new ones from corporate partners last year. Phyllis Librach in St. Louis, Mo, knows the heartache of the dress search as both a mother and a dress designer who specializes in plus sizes for special occasions. They finally had one custom made after the teen refused to buy a whitish wedding gown and dye it for prom.
She started her business 10 years ago after her daughter, now 29, was that curvy girl in tears in search of the perfect prom dress.
Even when it was all she could find in a size 16 or so at nearby stores, the New Jersey high school senior had no interest in buying a loose fitting style for her senior prom.
a lot of stores, Giorno said, never have anything that’s a little more sexy or a little ‘formfitting’, or anything like that for my age. Basically, shopping for a dream prom dress can be a ‘tear inducing’, hair pulling morass of bad design and few options especially for girls who need a dress that hugs the body instead of tenting it, clothes shopping for plus size teens can be frustrating actually.
Now look, a decade ago, the company carried a fraction of prom dresses up to size 22, Rubinetti said.
Stephanie Mekhjian, manager of David’s Bridal in Fort Worth, Texas, estimated 20 to 25 her prom percent customers wear sizes 18 to 22, including some who travel 100 miles or more to shop there.
Southern stores, particularly Texas, have a higher demand, she said. Nevertheless, she finally found one that didn’t make her look like a bridesmaid or worse, mother of the bride at a boutique.
Vneck grey lace fit and flare style with an open back and pleats above the knee for dancing ease on her big night. Normally, as pointed out by the market research group NPD, sixteen percent of women’s clothing sold in the is size 14 and up.