Maeson Wagner, Executive Editor
@mwagnercourant
‘Tis the season for junior and senior girls to shop for prom dresses that will become souvenirs of their high school careers. The excitement around finding the perfect prom dress is unmatched, and most students on the hunt for the perfect dress go to Winged Monkey boutique in Westport.
Winged Monkey is widely known as a hotspot for prom dresses. “Customers come from all over the state and neighboring states specifically for prom gowns,” said Jenny Vogel, a head staff member at Winged Monkey.
Prom season is one of their busiest times of the year. “We are busy year round with other special occasions, but during prom season we are substantially busier,” Jenny Vogel said.
Unsurprisingly, the popularity of stores like Winged Monkey is not limited to one season, “We definitely see an increase in revenue during prom season, but that’s also because it also overlaps with graduation and other spring events,” Vogel said. “The increase is not as high in our particular store as you may expect, because (in non-COVID years) there are also year round, seasonal events that lead to an increase in revenue. The summer time is really the only slowest time of the year where people are not shopping as much for special occasions.”
The prom dress hunt starts months in advance. “We expect prom season to start from January first and end at the beginning of June. This year since no one knew if there would even be a prom, prom season didn’t really start until March,” Vogel said.
Boutiques spend an enormous amount of time and energy searching for the dresses their customers will love. “We get shipments of gowns year round. We currently carry over twenty different gown brands. There is usually one order for each brand that we place for a spring “prom” delivery, but those shipments are spread out over several months,” Vogel said. “We also special order a lot of gowns, if a customer needs a different size or color, so we get those shipments almost daily during prom season,”
Most juniors wore long prom dresses to junior prom on May 21.
