'It's all about becoming a princess'
Satin, taffeta, lace and plenty of advice await girls in search of the perfect prom dress at a Brooksville boutique.
By ASJYLYN LODER
Published March 19, 2006
BROOKSVILLE - Outfitting a prom princess is a complicated business.
Shoes must be considered, plus handbags and earrings and necklaces and the occasional daring tiara.
And, of course, the dress.
Helping girls find the right dress - for weddings, pageants and proms - has been Patricia Lambright's profession for 15 years, since she walked into a S Broad Street shop to buy a pageant dress for her daughter and bought the whole store instead.
The mother of five went from homemaker to dress maven after persuading her husband, Richard Lambright, to buy the small dress rental shop. She has since expanded Patricia's Boutique into a 5,800-square-foot sales floor that includes casuals, cruise and "after 5" looks, bridal dresses and the brightly colored poofs and sparkles that make up her prom and pageant business.
"It's all about becoming a princess," Lambright said Saturday afternoon, a busy day midway through the prom season.
To that end, Lambright's 12 sales staff heave colorful piles of plastic-wrapped crinoline, satin, taffeta and lace to the dozen dressing rooms. There, they zip teens into the dresses, running the girls through a practiced rating system to cull the duds and narrow their choice.
It's a sentimental ritual, reminiscent of a young bride's search for her wedding dress. The girl steps from the dressing room onto a raised platform surrounded by three-way mirrors. She cranes her neck, considers the back of the dress. She runs her hands over it, pulls her hair up to consider the neckline. Then she either casually discounts it or looks back at her patiently waiting mother with a small, shy smile begging for approval.
This is how it goes for Carrie Cissna, an 18-year-old senior at Tampa Prep. She tries on a cream-colored dress with a sheer, draping sash. She loves it, but her mother, Susan Cissna, is gently noncommittal.
Cissna gets through four of her seven maybes before stepping uncertainly before the mirror in a black, bell shaped dress, embroidered from its fitted bodice to its wide hem with silver thread and beads. The sales attendant smiles her approval, while other mothers in the room nod their concurrence.
But it's her own mother's approbation that clinches it. Trying on the last two dresses is just a formality. When Cissna rustles back into the black one, she's sure.
Lambright has learned to recognize that moment. "It's kind of like a bride with their wedding dress. When that happens, they begin to light up and glow, and that's really special," she said.
Behind all the princess magic lies a booming business.
Patricia's sold 13 prom dresses Saturday, the latest of 277 prom gowns sold this year. On its busiest day this season, the shop sold 21 gowns.
The shop's most expensive prom dress retails for $529. Last year, the average price paid for a Patricia's prom dress was $262.
And this doesn't include shoes (average price $59) or jewelry (average price for necklace and earrings, $39).
Lambright credits the booming business to the $20,000 the shop shelled out on a new catalog, which was mailed out to 20,000 families. The catalog has brought in business from Orlando to Ocala, and from as far afield as Ireland.
For buying a dress, the girls get a discount on accessories, and a T-shirt emblazoned with the shop's prom motto: Patricia's Boutique, Where every girl feels like a princess.
The surging interest has kept Lambright and her husband busy. In January and February, dress sales rose 65 percent over last year, Lambright said. In addition to her dozen sales associates, five seamstresses bustle through the shop bearing baskets of pins, tacking up hems and tugging bodices into place.
Lambright honed her business acumen over the years, and learned some important tricks to selling dresses - how to work with mom's budget to make every girl feel special, how to make sure two girls don't show up to the same prom in the same dress and how to delicately steer inexperienced teens to their best colors and fits.
She considers each girl a "walking, talking billboard" for her boutique. "If they don't look good, and they don't get compliments, then you just sold a dress but you haven't done yourself justice and you haven't done the girl justice," Lambright said.
With this in mind, Lambright - with the trained eye of a pageant judge - is able to coax girls to consider something new.
Samantha Krietemeyer, 18, walked in dreaming of a strapless number in purple satin, fitted tight from its sequined bodice down to the knees, where the mermaid hem flaired out in rhinestone specked pin-tucks.
Most of all, Krietemeyer was dead sure she didn't want to wear black.
Soon, though, the Sumter County teen emerged from the dressing room in a form-fitting black silhouette with a brightly embroidered mermaid hem.
Her smile - and her mom's gasping approval - decided it. This was her new dress. She didn't want to take it off.
Kreitemeyer tried on earrings and decided on her shoes, and kept turning back to the mirrors while she waited for a seamstress to pin in her bodice. Then, reluctantly, she returned to the dressing room and her street clothes, passing the dress out to a sales associate who hung it on the back of the door to wait for its seamstress.
Asjylyn Loder can be reached at aloder@sptimes.com or 352 754-6127.