ShareThisBy HELEN MALANI
shopzilla.com
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Prom dress. Penny pinching. The two just don't go hand in hand. So what's a prom-bound teenage girl to do when her perfect prom dress doesn't match her mother's bottom line budget?
You can imagine the estrogen-fueled arguments. So I went online to bring the love back to one family ripped at the (ahem) seams.
Daughter: lover of strapless, figure-hugging, cocktail-length pink gowns, finds her dream dress in a glamour magazine, disregards $300 price tag.
Mother: wants to make her daughter happy at a third of the price, offering $100 for a dress she knows will only be worn once.
Armed with tear sheets from magazines and the responsibility of a young girl's happiness, I go to work on a comparison shopping site looking for the basics. I enter "pink," "formal dress," "prom dress." Results are hardly surprising. This time of year, expect anything marked "prom" to be at its peak price.
Next, I let the creative juices flow and I start searching keywords like "cocktail dress," "evening dress" and the magic word the fashion industry hopes you never learn: "juniors." Whenever you're looking for apparel of any sort, be it formal, casual, or trendy, the Junior Department in a retail store is a wonderland of steals. Oftentimes those departments copy the latest looks and drop the price points to make them teen-friendly.
Once I enter the world of junior dresses, I narrow my search to specific attributes, or features. It's back to "strapless" and "pink, and now I bring in mom's mandate of $100. Searching by attributes is a nice shortcut to what your true options really are.
Since I like happy endings as much as anyone, I arrive at one with the discovery of a pink strapless Ruby Rox princess-lace, cocktail-length dress at Nordstrom.com, with the fairytale price of just $78. That is the retail price, my friends.
Daughter: falls instantly in love with the Ruby Rox dress, and naturally, never looks at the price (true story).
Mother: loves the sweet look of the dress and falls even more deeply in love with the price.
The moral of this story? Be creative in your search terminology, shop by attributes, and prepare to have some money leftover for shoes.
Helen Malani is the chief shopping expert for Shopzilla.com, an E.W. Scripps company, and the largest comparison shopping search engine on the Web. For more columns visit www.scrippsnews.com
