by Sofia Colignon | news editor

Prom season is not just prom season; it’s reserving restaurants, making plans for that day shopping for shoes, accessories and last but not least—shopping for a dress season. However, some students this year have decided to try to save some money on that part, either by making their own dress or borrowing one from a friend.

“It’s made my prom dress shopping experience less stressful to look for a dress with work and school, it’s easier to manage,” senior Andrea Mireles-Ochoa said.

This is something Jag Exchange tried to incorporate in their program.

“We were trying to do it in Jag Exchange, we were trying to get it set up, but it’s really hard to figure out like, if you brought in like a $300 dress, but all the rest of them in there were like $80 prom dresses… It wouldn’t really be a fair trade. It was really hard to figure out how to make it an even trade when there’s so much variability and style and price and how to make it fair. It just seems like a really big… Now, if we could figure out how to justify it, I guess… Because then if you didn’t get anything and you wanna take your dress, then what if someone had already picked that dress? And it’s not the same. So trying to figure out how to make that even is really hard,” Fashion design teacher Mandy Elliot said.

Elliot has also had students make their own dress in class in the past.

“Not specifically. Ismael Belmonte, from what I’ve heard him say, I haven’t seen it, but he makes a lot of stuff at home. So he made a prom dress for somebody, and then I think he is making, I don’t know if it’s a suit or pants and a jacket, I’m not sure exactly. But I don’t have anybody actively in class doing it this year. I usually do, but they have to get so many skills done before that happens, and it’s such a long process, we really just haven’t had time. But I’ve had a lot of kids in the past doing that,” Elliot said.

However, there is a common misconception when it comes to students making their own dress.

“Making your own prom dress is hard. If you want to, then yes, I encourage it, but it doesn’t necessarily save you money, because, I guess it kinda depends of how you want it, but I think the false belief is ‘I’m going to make it because it’s going to save me money,’ and that’s not necessarily true,” Elliot said.

The fabric is not cheap, and you would have to buy a lot.

Usually, what I tell students is that you need to buy almost double the fabric because if you make a mistake, you can’t just go and get the same fabric, what if all that fabric sold out? So you have to have something you can kinda go back to fix that mistake. So, sometimes it just ends up costing more,” Elliot said.