With prom season approaching an interesting new trend has arisen. This year, girls attending their prom have started repurposing and wearing their mother’s prom dresses.
Often high school students are spending upwards of hundreds, and sometimes more than a thousand, of dollars on their prom night. A huge portion of that cost is a prom dress that girls are paying upwards of $500 dollars on. Girls can cut the cost of their prom night in half by spending next to nothing on their prom dresses.
Reusing vintage dresses for prom helps fight the insane consumerist society that centers so much around Prom and Weddings. Women spend so much money on the perfect dress, hair, nails, makeup, shoes, flowers, etc. This obsession has created a market of frivolity that has no sustainability. Not a single one of my friends have worn or had any use for their prom dress ever again. And while they enjoyed wearing them the night of prom, they effectively wasted $500 or more. One of the most popular prom dress brands is Sherri Hill. One of her most expensive prom dresses is listed at over $1500 US with no dresses listed at less than $250 dollars.
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If you don’t want to spend hundreds of dollars on a one wear dress and you don’t have an extra formal gown hanging out in your mom’s closet, you can always buy your dress thrift. There are some great thrift stores where you can buy used and vintage prom dresses and evening gowns. Some stores in Toronto are House of Vintage, Chosen and By Consignment.
If you can’t find a vintage dress you like or you already have your heart set on a designer dress, you can always resell your dress to one of these stores so you aren’t spending as much and someone else can enjoy your dress when you’re done with it. Most importantly, it’s a great way to recycle and help put an end to the extravagant – and most times wasteful – fast fashion prom dress trend.
