All you need to know about choosing a formal dress.

Few events define a young lady like the celebration of a formal does. The rite of passage, transforming from a young girl into a young lady, is something that stays with you for a long… long time! Formals are ceremonious events, and they require formal fashion to commemorate them.


Setting the Stage
For many of you, Formal Night will probably be one of the first (if not THE first!) times that you wear a formal dress. And as a result, you could be forgiven for being apprehensive about what to expect, and how to choose the right dress. However, what’s unmerited is the fact that some young ladies don’t really give the fashion of this event the importance that it deserves: 

• They’ll wait until the last minute to shop for one
• Often, their choice of formal fashion for the occasion won’t reflect the momentousness of the event
• Even if they find a dress that they like, they may not bother to take the utmost care in making sure it is a perfect fit for their body type
• Scant care is paid to matching the formal dress with their overall look for the occasion 
• They may even end up spending way too much for a dress and accessories 

Eventually, the formal dress they do end up wearing doesn’t match with the accessories they buy to go with the dress  That is why I’ll give you some pointers about how to choose a formal dress for what might arguably be one of the best and most certainly memorable days in your life!


Make it a process... NOT a milestone!
Choosing the right formal dress should be a process and not a milestone. If you look at a dictionary, you’ll find that processes involve many steps, while a milestone is a single event. In that respect, even though Formal spells the last day in high school, getting to that day is a long process. Therefore, to truly learn how to choose a dress for this significant event in your life, you need to go through a process.

Here are some important considerations when making formal fashion choices:

Mark your calendar: While you may not need your formal dress until several months from today, it’s best that you start planning for the occasion NOW!

Plan your budget: Remember this is a once-in-a-lifetime occasion, so don’t skimp on the expenses for your dress. Sure, you need to plan what you will spend, but with many months advance notice, you can start looking for the most cost-effective dress to fit the occasion. 

Plan a theme: Formal fashion themes are a good way to make the occasion even more special. Is it a theme from a movie you like? Perhaps a Masquerade theme? Could it be a vintage-themed outfit? What about a special city - like French-inspired designs? 

Understand your body: Knowing how to choose a formal dress starts with knowing your body type. All else follows from there. So, what type of body-type are you: Hourglass? Pear? Rectangle? Apple-shaped? Inverted triangle? The right choices will fall into place once you understand your body and we can help you what fits your shape best.  

Buy versus stitch: These days, there’s so much variety in ready-to-wear formal fashion that you can get precisely what you want and if you have problems finding the "one and only" dress for you, a wonderfully personalised tailor-made dress might do you justice. 

If you want to end up making your formal night (and the entire day!) a memorable one, then you need to make choosing a formal dress a process, rather than just a quick event. And while we’ve only touched upon how to select a formal dress, remember this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Don’t forget to plan for shoes, accessories, hairdos and makeup. 

Marwa Elkadi