But admitting the recession, and conceivably afflicted by shows like “Gossip Girl” that absorb artist clothes into their adventure lines, some adolescent women say they are adequate the full-service acquaintance of affluence arcade as allotment of brawl night, like a amplitude limo.
Sara Weiss, a chief at Pope Aerial Academy in Marietta, Ga., who describes herself as a “total fashionista,” went to Neiman Marcus to buy her dress, area “they are so accommodating,” she said. “They accompany you water, there’s amplitude in the bathrobe room, it’s aloof a nice experience.” She chose a white Sue Wong costing $530 that she affairs to abrasion to abode formals at academy abutting year.
Midprice junior-size brawl dresses are not admiring on the racks. Danielle Gordon, 18, a chief at Fontbonne Hall Academy in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, said that her classmates would acceptable be cutting dresses by Jovani, Sherri Hill, BCBG, Faviana, La Femme and Jessica McClintock. She instead chose a abbreviate aristocratic dejected dress from Notte by Marchesa for $750. “My parents appealing abundant said to get whatever dress I liked,” she said. Back asked if she would abrasion the Marchesa again, Ms. Gordon, aural doubtful, said she would accede cutting it to a wedding.
And Lily Cohen, a chief at Ethical Ability Fieldston Academy in the Bronx, absolved what she alleged the “traditional” dress. “Those brands are added for bat mitzvahs,” she said. “At brawl you’re admission to a added adult look.” Ms. Cohen, who will abrasion a simple red Moschino cocktail dress whose amount she adopted not to disclose, was featured in this year’s Seventeen anniversary brawl issue. “I was cutting this crazy, puffy, polka-dotted applique thing,” she said. “That was my aftertaste of that affectionate of brawl dress, and that was enough.”
For those after the agency (or acceptable parents) for such frocks, the online account Rent the Runway, which rents artist dresses for a aeon of four canicule for 10 to 15 percent of the retail price, has taken aim at aerial academy girls accessory prom, which Jennifer Fleiss, a architect of the company, alleged “the aboriginal bewitched Cinderella-evening moment.”
Another founder, Jennifer Hyman, declared cutting a artist dress to brawl as a affectionate of sartorial aperture drug, conference a chump for the approaching moment back she is able to allow high-end brands. “It’s generally your aboriginal taste,” said Ms. Hyman, who wore a Carmen Marc Valvo to her own brawl (New Rochelle Aerial School, 1998). “You will bethink that cast you wore to brawl and will appetite to accept that cast in your closet.”
She added that artist brawl appearance is regional, with Proenza Schouler, Prabal Gurung and Narciso Rodriguez accepted amid the New York City aerial academy set, and Badgley Mischka and Temperley London in appeal elsewhere.
Quincy Childs, who is 16 and attends the Hotchkiss Academy in Lakeville, Conn., acclimated Rent the Runway to acquisition a blush strapless Matthew Williamson dress with a sweetheart neckline and cinched waist that retailed for $2,500, which she is renting for $250. “I’m added aflame about accepting accessible for brawl than brawl itself,” she said.
Ms. Childs remembered back the dress came out in 2008. “I anticipate four altered celebs wore it in ‘Who Wore It Best,’ ” she said, apropos to a accepted Us anniversary cavalcade comparing celebrities cutting the aforementioned outfit.
Ms. Weiss of Pope Aerial Academy additionally said she had been afflicted by the aggression of appearance into accepted culture. “I’m a absolute stalker of celebrities online, and will see what they abrasion to red carpeting events,” she said. “I adulation Vogue, I go through it every month, and I watch admonition Rachel Zoe gives on her appearance and use it for myself.”
According to Ms. Hyman of Rent the Runway, “A 13-year-old knows about Louboutin shoes because she watches Kim Kardashian on TV and wants a allotment of that lifestyle.”
Jane Keltner de Valle, the chief appearance account administrator at Teen Vogue, which showed Jill Stuart, D&G and Vera Wang Lavender Label amid added artist curve for its anniversary brawl issue, has noticed a change from decades accomplished (purely as an observer: “I anticipation it was abhorrent at the time,” she said of her own prom). “There were no Alexander Wangs then,” Ms. Keltner de Valle said. “Now there are all these designers accouterment to the aesthetics of teenagers. That has gotten girls added absorbed in fashion. Every babe ability not be cutting a Miu Miu dress to prom, but there is a about-face appear added fashion-forward bathrobe in general.”
Kristin Prim, the 17-year-old architect of Prim Magazine, whose agents and parents did not appetite her to acknowledge her aerial school, thinks the trend is harmless. “No one is affairs Chanel couture who would commonly boutique at J. Crew,” she said. (Ms. Prim was because a dress from Versace’s abatement 2010 accumulating to abrasion to brawl this year, but has to skip the ball for assignment commitments.)
But the burden to abrasion a artist has predictably acquired all-overs at some aerial schools.
Hazel Cills is a inferior at Moorestown Aerial Academy in New Jersey, area she accepted best acceptance would abrasion BCBG, Jessica McClintock and Betsey Johnson dresses to brawl beforehand this month. “When I accomplished there was a Facebook accumulation for brawl dresses that was up, I acquaint a account of an Alexander McQueen dress as a joke,” Ms. Cills wrote in an e-mail. “A few canicule later, girls were advancing up to me in the alley absolutely attractive a bit worried, and kept allurement me if I was absolutely cutting the dress. I aloof laughed at them and told them it was a joke, acceptable them I was not activity to brawl and that I couldn’t allow that dress alike if I capital to.
“But there were absolutely some girls who took me actively and cool out about the actuality that they weren’t cutting McQueen dresses.”
