Prom Shopping and the Economy
By: Sarah Lovett
Updated: April 8, 2009
In the next few months, high school girls will spend a more than usual amount of time in the mirror preparing for a teenage rite of passage -- the prom. Between the dress, hair, make-up, nails, and shoes -- its a very expensive rite of passage. but in this economy, things could be different.
One Owensboro business is seeing hoards of girls come in to spend less, but still look like a queen -a prom queen.
Watching Patti and Martha Acquisto help customers find that perfect dress -- youd never know they owned a consignment shop. All of the dresses have been worn before. Martha Acquisto says since December more people are using their store to buy and sell. For a high schooler looking for a prom dress its not hard to see why -- at Pattis Resale Shop there are dresses of every color and size priced from thirty-nine to three hundred dollars.
Acquisto says, "There used to be a stigma attached to buying a dress thats been worn, but theyve only been on for five or six hours."
She says a prom dress doesnt have to be a huge purchase, even though it is a huge deal.
Consignment shops are one of the few businesses thriving in this economy.
At Pattis Resale Shop alone, sales were up sixty percent in February, and fifty two percent in March.
