Design Your Own Prom Dress Online

There are two main ways to make a custom prom dress. One is to, quite literally, design your own prom dress, by making a pattern, buying fabric, and stitching it together. If that is your goal, see our tutorial on How to Make and Design Your Own Prom Dress.

If your sewing skills are not the best, this article is the right one for you. It will deal with the second method of making a custom prom dress, which is by finding an online outlet that allows you to create custom ordered prom dresses. If your not sure about using an online vendor, see Why Design Your Own Prom Dress Online.

First you will need to find an online vendor that allows you to take a step by step process to designing your dress. Once you have done that, you will be taken through a few easy steps that will show you a representation of a finished product before you place the order.

Select a Top Style

Begin by selecting what style you would like the top of the gown to be. There are many styles to choose from, including criss cross, scoop neck, long sleeve modesty, and strapless sweetheart for an especially sexy look. Scoop neck is fantastic for framing a beautiful necklace.

Select a Skirt Style

Now you will need to put the top style together with a skirt style. Again, any good vendor will give you tons of options including, asymmetrical, a-line, straight, ball gown, and pick up styles. For more information on what styles are best for your body type, see our Prom Dress Designers Guide. Keep in mind what effect the skirt style will have on your overall silhouette, compared for the effect you are going for. If you want something a little shorter in length, you want to select the “tea length” option for your skirt.

Choose Your Dress’s Fabric

The type of fabric you choose to make your dress can have quite an impact on how the final product will look. Many girls today like the sleek sexiness of satin, but you may prefer something more along the lines of charmeuse, or perhaps something less traditional, if that is available. Don’t for get to select your size.

Color Selection

You might actually go crazy trying to pick the color you want. there really are almost too many to choose from. Keep in mind what colors are popular that season. If your not too sure, look in a fashion magazine and see what colors are most heavily featured, or ask a friend that is obsessively into fashion trends. Also not that different colors will represent you as a different kind of person. A different kind of girl wears Chocolate than the one who wears Lime. I think you can easily imagine that without too much further explanation.

Accessorize and Enhance

While a plain dress may still be gorgeous, it can be simply stunning with the righ adornments and accessories. You will be able to choose to add beading, bows, sashes, and shawls to turn your prom dress into a fashion fanstastique. Use these for splashes of color, highlighting, added classiness, or opulence. Whatever you’re going for, accessories will make the dress.

The Fantastic Final Fashion

At this point you will be able to see what the finished product will look like and cost before you place your order. If you are not completely satisfied, go back through the options to tweak the look a little further. Maybe you could make your waistline pop by making the sash a contrasting color, or look more classy by adding a shawl. Once you feel as if the dress is perfect, place your order. When prom night arrives, you know that you will look absolutely stunning in a one of a kind prom dress.

Image Credit: Janet Calcaterra Black Dress

Here’s an example of how you should not design your own prom dress.

Marche Taylor showed up to the Houston Texas ares Madison High Senior Prom wearing a custom prom dress that looked a bit more like a bikini than a prom dress. When she arrived at the Sugar Land Mariott that was hosting the school’s prom, she was informed that her prom dress did not conform to the required dress code. Marche was asked to leave, but became belligerent and demanded her money back. Due to the confrontation, the situation escalated until the police were called to escort Marche Talyor away. She was not charged.

I know that a few people out there think that Taylor should be able to wear anything she wants to the prom, but that is incorrect. Prom is a school function, and thus subjected to school rules. The school provided a dress code along with the ticket, that is similar to most any other prom dress code. The prom dress code states:

1. Only one inch of the midsection can be shown.
2. Bare back are acceptable
3. Slits in the dress can be no more than three inches above the knee.
4. See through fabrics should not be in places which reveal private body parts.
5. Proper undergarments must be worn.
6. Tennis shoes of any kind are unacceptable.

Here’s the video of the prom dress design gone wrong.

Before I would even get into a critique of what a hot mess this prom dress design is, it’s important to note once again that This student was aware of the required dress code. Furthermore, she was not arrested for her prom dress design, but for her belligerent behavior. She was asked to leave the prom for failing to conform to the dress code with her prom dress. It’s a pretty hot issue, but the issue here is that prom is a school function. Please take note of the code listed above when you set out to design a prom dress, or you could wind up being asked to leave.

Instead, I would opt for one of these great looking 2008 prom dresses seen in this video.

You’re probably not going to go wrong with one of those prom dress designs. For more info on how to design a prom dress the right way, read our prom dress designer’s guide.

Going to the prom is one of the biggest, most memorable nights of a teenage girl’s life. You want to make sure those memories are good ones, and not ones of disaster. Looking extraordinary in a fantastic prom dress is a central part of making the prom into a wonderful memory. Like weddings, proms are something that usually only occur once, or maybe twice .

Also like with weddings, prom night is a night to go all out, and this includes the prom dress as well. Wedding dresses are sometimes handed down from mother to daughter, but this is not as much the case with prom dresses. Still, many will drop quite a large sum of money on their prom dress, and will also invest a great deal of time, care, and frustration in trying to get the dress that is perfect.

One way to avoid some of the hassle is to design your own prom dress online. A good prom dress can easily cost $100 or more! Unfortunately, this can be well out of the price range of many individuals. Don’t despair. Many online sellers offer designer dresses at discounted prices. You should have no difficulty in finding a high quality designer prom dress for only $75 or less.

Online shopping is one of the greatest new technologies. It might not be new in the bleeding edge sense, but in the historical sense, it is a fairly recent development. Shopping online allows you to draw from a much bigger selection of inventory than would be available offline. You will have your choice of just about any designer that appeals to you. You also have every color and style available, because you pick the design. Whether it’s a puffy prom dress, tulle skirt, and aline prom dress, empire waist, or a sheath skirt, you will have the ability to order it in just the color and style that is perfect for you.

It is less exhausting as well. There is no commute. If you tire of browsing, you simply step away from the computer and do something else for a while. It’s not a problem, the internet is always open. You can resume your shopping whenever you feel ready. This is why prom time can be made so much easier if you design your own prom dress online.

Image Credit: thegoinggreenboutique Prom