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How To Give The Prom A Personal Touch

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How To Give The Prom A Personal Touch

By Emily Ashbolt

With Newtown High School’s junior and senior proms mere weeks away, many high school girls have their minds set on one thing: the prom dress.

The NHS junior prom is set for Friday March 25, and the school’s senior prom is scheduled for April 30.

The prom can sometimes be considered a bizarre ritual, involving dancing and posing. Dress shopping pilgrimages can go on for days, and the date of the prom does not even have to be official before there is hot debate on social networking sites over who is wearing what color and the type of cut of all the attendee’s gowns.

The problem with all this fanfare, however, is that it comes at a price.

There are solutions. Some of Newtown’s most fashion-forward and inventive people collaborated to give the best tips on looking your best for the prom without stretching the budget. While these tips are budget-friendly, putting a personalized stamp on an outfit can also be a thrill, and there are many options.

Since October, Queen Street Cleaners has been collecting prom dresses for the New Fairfield Community Services Club. Larry Gillotte, owner of Queen Street Cleaners and three other dry cleaners in Bethel, Danbury, and New Fairfield, put out collection receptacles in all of his stores for this organization, which donates dresses in good condition to girls not able to get ensembles themselves.

Donna Bloom, employee at Queen Street Cleaners, was impressed with the way that the community responded to this project.

“Oh, we’ve had quite a few dresses donated in this time,” she explained. “At least 30.”

Considering the average price for a prom dress is over $200, that is a significant donation.

This particular drive ended on March 5, but if looking for a dress or interested in donating, check the New Fairfield Community Services Club’s website, www.csofnewfairfield.com. The Pretty For Prom Gown Sale is also scheduled to be held this Saturday, March 12, from 10 am until 4 pm, at the Company A Firehouse on Route 39 in New Fairfield.

Once a dress is acquired, however, there is still another issue to handle — accessorizing. Adding accessories is the quickest way to make a dress personalized, and give it a unique flare.

Irene Caulfield of Sabrina Style sees countless girls, not just from Newtown and Sandy Hook, but also from Ridgefield and many surrounding areas.

Every year, she said, there are girls who end up with dresses that just don’t look as good as they could.

“Most girls who come in to the shop, they have a sense of what they want. They’ve looked online,” she elaborated. “But sometimes what they want and what looks good can be very different. The most important thing I can say is, ‘Try dresses on.’ Just try loads on.”

Along with dresses for all formal occasions, as well as tuxedos and formal menswear, Sabrina Style also stocks accessories in corresponding colors and styles to the dresses in stock. But Ms Caulfield advised against blindly following trends, when accessorizing or otherwise.

“There are always trends that pop up, key colors that are in, but it is always best to go with a color or cut that suits you,” she recommended.

“Nude shoes are in style, platform pumps are in style, statement necklaces are big,” she mentioned. However, it is important to make these hot styles work for the individual. “The thing is, if you have a bold necklace, you have to wear posts, and if you have dramatic earrings, you don’t want to wear a necklace. You just don’t want to take away from the beauty of the dress.”

Liz Cooper of Great Finds and Designs Consignment, agreed, saying the dress is definitely the most important part.

“The dress is the main part, and if you bring the dress in, we will try and do everything we can to make it look good with accessorizing — we’ll find things that match. It’s not the common things you see, we even have some local artists to bring their own things.”

Ms Cooper said that consigning is a great way to add a personal touch to any look, for prom or otherwise. One of her most common offerings is jewelry. “We get unique things in here,” she said, commenting on the original earrings local artists craft just for her shop and the funkier pieces she has received from donators from other parts of the country. “A lot of people come back from these weddings they go to aying, ‘Oh my goodness, everyone loved my jewelry,’ that they got here.”

However, do not think that her store is for accessories only. The store prides itself on carrying brands such as Juicy Couture and Ann Taylor, and along with an assortment of designer bags, cool shawls, and classy shoes, she also said that her dress business is thriving. “We sell a lot of prom dresses, lots of dresses for weddings, shoes bags, jewelry — unique things. These dresses, no one else is going to have them. They are not in stores.”

Ms Cooper said the best part of doing your shopping at a consignment store, however, is the pricing.

“If you can find a dress at the store for $300, you might be able to find it at to consignment store for only $90. There’s loads of consignment stores around,” added Ms Cooper, “Like the Fashion Exchange down the road, Goodwill, etc.”

So the possibilities for finding unique pieces are endless.

Prom can be an extremely exciting, extremely pricy event. However, regardless of one’s money situation, there are ways to make sure you go to prom looking fabulous. And regardless of where the dress, the shoes, or the bling were purchased, the most important part of prom is undoubtedly the memories that will be made.

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