Shop helps girls get perfect attire for prom

It’s the time of year when giddy girls converge on formal-wear shops looking for the perfect prom dress. It’s also the time of year for parents of those girls to cringe at the price tags affixed to dresses usually worn only once.

Julianne Sullivan feels their pain. When her daughter was in high school she helped her shop for dresses for both her junior and senior proms. “We noticed a lot of girls looking around the shops and leaving with nothing.” Sullivan said the most basic formal dress will usually run around $200. It bothered her to think that many girls might miss this milestone for lack of a pretty dress.

In response, she opened Julianne’s Prom Closet last year, helping 14 girls find the dresses of their dreams. This year she expects to help many more. The goal of the nonprofit organization is to provide free or reduced-price formal attire for high school girls across the Inland Northwest.

“You only get to go to prom once in your life,” Sullivan said. “Aside from their wedding, when are they going to dress up like this?”

The Prom Closet has 600 new and gently used dresses on hand, ranging from size 1 to 24. Keeping the closet adequately stocked has been a challenge. “We really need larger-size dresses,” Sullivan said, adding that formal wear tends to run smaller than traditional dresses. Another challenge is the short life of a prom dress because styles change so quickly. “It’s really only five to six years, sometimes not even that,” she said. While there are classic styles and fabrics, girls generally want to wear the latest fashion. And once girls have found the perfect dress they don’t want to let it go.

“They felt gorgeous and they always hope maybe they’ll wear them again,” Sullivan said. By the time many girls are ready to part with their dresses they are often out of style.

Any girl with a financial need is eligible to shop at Julianne’s Prom Closet. Sullivan said most of the teens she’s helped are enrolled in the free/reduced-price lunch program at area schools. The only documents required are current student ID and a letter from someone in the school or community who is acquainted with the student’s financial circumstances.

Sullivan has one goal in mind when she helps girls shop for a dress. She wants people to say, “Oh, what a beautiful girl,” instead of “Oh, what a beautiful dress.”

And beautiful is exactly how identical twins Catie and Michaela Huston felt as they shopped at the Prom Closet on a recent Saturday. It’s open by appointment only, and the Huston twins were delighted that Sullivan could fit them in on a Saturday. “We both play softball for East Valley High School,” Michaela said. “We’re super busy.”

The girls were relieved to find out about the Prom Closet. “Because there’s two of us, we were trying to figure out how to go to prom without spending a lot of money,” Catie said. There are seven people in their family, and Michaela said there’s not a lot of money for extras. They weren’t sure what they wanted, but they did know one thing they didn’t want: identical prom dresses.

Neither girl knew what to expect, but both were thrilled as Sullivan showed them hundreds of sparkly, lacy, classic and beaded dresses in every imaginable hue.

However, Catie Huston had just one color in mind. “Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve wanted a poofy, red dress,” she said. When Sullivan pulled a red gown from a bag, Catie fell in love. “It was the third dress I tried on,” she said. “It’s floor-length with beadwork on the bodice.” Sullivan even provided a red evening purse to match.

Her sister was less than thrilled with the idea of dress shopping. “I was really stressed out,” Michaela said. “I hate shopping for dresses.” Two hours later, she’d changed her tune.

“Time flew by,” she said. “It was the most fun I’d ever had shopping!” Unlike Catie, Michaela wasn’t sure what she was looking for. But Sullivan took time and asked her lots of questions. “She was a perfect stranger,” Michaela recalled. “But it seemed like she really knew me.”

The self-described jock was flabbergasted when Sullivan showed her a pale pink gown. “My jaw dropped,” she said. “It was a pink version of Belle’s dress from ‘Beauty and the Beast,’ ” she said referring to the Disney fairy-tale classic. “I’ve always admired Belle’s dress since I was little.”

The strapless gown laces up the back and features cascading flounces pinned up with sparkling jewels.

Sullivan said she wants her clients to feel beautiful – like princesses. She certainly succeeded with the Huston twins. When Michaela recalled seeing herself in the mirror wearing her new pink gown she said, “I seriously felt like royalty.”