Florida to California, Prom Dresses Selling

By CHRISTINE HAUGHNEY
Published: April 30, 2009
Families living in parts of the nation that have been hardest hit by the recession are still spending whatever they can to make sure their teenagers make it to prom. That means that gown and formalwear shops from Florida to California are thriving even in areas where customers have been directly affected by the housing collapse and the banking slowdown.

“Yes we are in a recession and we’re in a bad recession,” said Georgette Diaz, owner of Georgette’s in Tampa, Fla. “But they’re going to forgo other things to make sure their daughter goes to prom.”

Even in a state battered by the real estate slowdown, Ms. Diaz said, families are still spending $250 to $300 for gowns. She hung a framed sign on her shop door offering teenagers the opportunity to help earn their gowns by helping out at the store on Saturdays leading up to prom, and a few girls took advantage of the offer. But for the most part, she said, their families are paying for prom gowns.

While shoppers at Cardita Formalwear in Port St. Lucie may delay their prom purchases, boys are spending even more this year on tuxes, according to the shop’s owner, Clifford Pearl. He said teenage boys were spending $150 to $160 for designer brands, though they typically spent about $120 to $135 last year.

Mr. Pearl said about 80 percent of his teenage customers tell him, “I want to go all out.”
Even in Southern California where many mortgage banking jobs were concentrated, girls are buying gowns “like there’s no tomorrow,” according to Suzanne Aguila, owner of Carraz Prom Gowns in Glendale and Torrance. Ms. Aguila said they are still spending what they did last year, $300 to $500.

Bianca Cortez, an 18-year-old senior at John Burroughs High School in Burbank, still plans to attend her senior prom even though her family has been under financial pressure. Her grandmother was laid off from a manufacturing job, and Bianca’s mother has had to help her out. Bianca is using her savings from working at an elementary school program to help pay for the $400 deep purple gown she bought at Carraz. Her mother Marlin Cortez said she had passed up shopping for staples for herself like shoes so that she could give her daughter $200 to pay for her gown. She would like to help her daughter out even more with paying for the evening.
“I didn’t want her to miss out,” she said. Ms. Cortez, 37, was not able to go to her own prom because “there just wasn’t money.”

In markets like Charlotte, N.C., which depends heavily on the banking industry for jobs, some families are buying gowns by delaying purchases until prom night and taking advantage of layaway programs. Pam Funderburk, manager of Dar-Lynn’s Bridal and Formal Wear in Matthews, a Charlotte suburb, said at least 25 percent more teenagers were trying to put prom gowns on layaway than a year ago. In the 27 years she has worked in the prom gown business, she said, she has never seen so many teenagers delay paying for their gowns until the weekend of the prom. They used to wrap up buying gowns by March.

“They’re just waiting to see what their parents have to spend,” she said.
Ms. Funderburk also is seeing more mothers and daughters quarrel about the cost of prom gowns. She said she can appreciate the financial stresses because her husband’s income has been cut back drastically in the past year. She feels grateful that she works in the business and can get her daughter her senior prom gown through work.

“I’ve had girls go out of here in tears when their mothers won’t buy them something that they liked,” she said. “I’m sure it had something to do with the economy.”