Grab Your Credit Card—It's Prom Season

Start with a sherbert color, add some beading at the waist or neckline, and maybe a ruffled or curly hemline. Perhaps an overskirt. Some hint at décolleté  if you think you can get it past your father.

Bingo!

It’s the perfect prom dress. Just about every high school girl dreams of it, sketching it in her notebook or heading with her pack to the formal wear sections in department stores.

When it’s time to buy, at least 1,000 16-, 17- and 18-year-olds head each year to Jay West, at the intersection of Kings Highway and Haddon Avenue.

“Location, location, location,” quips Patti Johnson, a sales associate at the business that has been in operation for 43 years. The traffic light at the corner, compelling vehicles to stop and gape at the ever-changing windows, adds interest.

The bottom line, however, is that Sue Maslowski, who purchased the business from her parents Norma and Stan three years ago, hunts like a tiger for the dresses that will sell to the young women in the area.

Last year, Jay West sold 873 prom dresses. So long as the dress was purchased from Maslowski’s shop, it wasn’t duplicated at the dance that caps each high school senior’s year. She and her staff still rely on index cards to track each prom, the customers and the colors. They use the same method to record mother-of-the bride dresses.

Two other bridal shops in Haddonfield, Country Way and Angel Bridal, no longer sell prom gowns, so the solo local stop is Jay West.

While some girls are drawn to a knee-length formal, they’re usually sold for sophomore dances and junior proms, said Maslowski. And there always will be a member of every class with the self-assurance to carry off a vintage gown.

For the rest, it’s glimmer and glitz, along with special shoes (usually strappy sandals) and, rhinestones at neck, wrist and ear lobes. Oh, and don’t forget the “garments,” the bra cups, corsets and Spanx for a smooth dress line.

Maslowski starts her buying expedition in August, at fashion shows in New York City and Chicago. “By April, we’re done,” she said, which makes it tough on a client who put off shopping, either waiting for a date or deciding the little number she had for someone else’s prom in 2010  just wasn’t going to cut it in 2011.

“A lot of the girls have the dress before they have the date,” said Maslowski. With many high school seniors going to the prom solo or in groups, a date is not the most essential component of the memory.

The local prom season begins with the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend and peaks in late April and early May. “Haddonfield is always the last prom, the second weekend of June,” she said.

Prices for prom gowns at Jay West begin at $279, average around $359, and can go way up, to the $700-plus peony gown showcased inside the front door of the shop. If you’re figuring the budget, don’t forget the alterations, like the sewn-in bra cups. And that ruffled hem that caught your eye? Chances are alterations can’t save it unless you’re tall.

To jump-start the buying season Jay West offered a 20 percent off sale during the second week of February, with informal modeling inside the store. “You couldn’t get inside. I got telephone calls from people complaining about the crowd,” said Maslowski.

The shop also participates in prom shows at high schools throughout the season. Proceeds from those shows usually are earmarked for after-prom or project graduation events, geared to stopping drunken driving accidents. One show at Clearview Regional High School drew 550 people. Jay West also does fashion shows through March for Cherokee, Bishop Eustace and Pennsauken high schools.

Girls usually shop with their mothers, although occasionally the purchase will be made with a telephone call to home or work for a credit card number, said Maslowski.

Floral fabrics were a big presence last year and some of this year’s dresses feature animal prints, usually overlaid with tulle. “We’re getting back to the ball gown look,” said Maslowski. She and her staff all said they are glad the day of the bare midriffs is history. And so is the trick of purchasing a two-piece dress in a larger than needed size so the waist of the skirt would hang on the hips to reveal a naval ring.

Prom gowns start at size zero and continue in good supply to sizes 8 and 10. There are no 12s, but many 16, 18, and 20s, said staff at the shop.

Shopping this week with her mother was Bianca Sangrigoli, 17, of Washington Township. She had visited the shop with friends and asked her mother, Beverly, to look over a dress that slid over her size-zero frame.

It’s not just the dress, said Beverly Sangrigoli. “It’s the hair styling, the tanning, the shoes, the makeup.”

“Don’t forget the nails,” Bianca called out from the dressing room.