An important message to high school students! Homecoming is right around the corner on October 8th, which means the time to find the perfect dress is counting down. If you still haven’t found “the” dress yet, there’s no need to panic; you came to the right place. 

If you didn’t already know, the typical dress code for a Homecoming dress is knee-length or above-knee dress, and longer, more formal dresses are reserved for prom. However, this is not a set dress code, so if you have an outfit (perhaps a pantsuit or matching two-piece) that you want to wear or really fits the theme, go for it! I’m all here for being bold and original. 

Speaking of the theme, Night in Neverland, it might be fun to try to match your dress to the theme. Color-wise, this could mean anywhere from navy blue to silver to gold. Really anything with a bit of sparkle could fit and be seen as fairy dust. To get you started thinking of ideas, you could use Tinkerbell’s light green dress as inspiration and try to find something of that color, or if you happen to find something that screams mermaid vibes (I envision it to be something colorful and metallic, but I’m no mermaid expert), that would definitely fit the theme. Also, anything that gives “fantasy” or looks straight out of a storybook. 

Although thinking of and imagining the perfect Homecoming dress is not hard, making that dream a reality is the real challenge. There are two main ways to approach dress shopping, in-store and online, but the latter seems to be more and more preferred. 

This year especially, it seems that more students are buying Homecoming dresses online as new online dress stores have gained popularity: Princess Polly (https://us.princesspolly.com/), Lucy in the Sky (https://www.lucyinthesky.com/), Shein (https://us.shein.com/), and Lulus (https://www.lulus.com/) are some if you want to check them out! There is plenty of controversy when it comes to buying your dress online. Anjani Bodar (11) shares her decision about buying her Homecoming dress from Princess Polly (an online store). She states that as opposed to in-store shopping, “I like online shopping because I feel like there are more options to choose from. It’s also a lot more convenient because you don’t have to worry about finding time to go to the mall to find a dress.” Anjani definitely brings up a good point about convenience and options; it is agreeably easier to scroll through pages of dresses in bed than having to drive to each store and individually flip through dresses.

However, online dress shopping is the riskier way to go, and when it comes to having a dress for Homecoming, it is probably not the best time to live on the edge. Not only is it a risk to not try on a dress before you purchase it, but the dress might not come in time. When an online store gets a ton of orders at once (Homecoming season is like their rush hour), many orders get delayed and the original estimated time is inaccurate; this is why you should always have a backup option if you decide to order online. 

What’s the alternative? Good old in-store shopping where you walk from store to store (with your legs and not just scrolling your fingers), search for a dress you like (there is no filtering by category), wait in a long line to try the dress on, and wait in an even longer line to checkout. Some stores worth checking out at the mall include Windsor, Macy’s, and Nordstrom. Each of these stores have a variety of dresses with prices that can fit your price range, but Windsor is a bit more pricey compared to the other two stores. However, you should be warned that many students get their Homecoming dress from Windsor, so there is a greater chance of seeing the dress you buy from Windsor more than once at the dance (twinsies… on the bright side it most likely means that you have trendy fashion taste). 

Smaller, non-chain stores and online stores are a safe bet if you are worried about someone else wearing the same dress as you. But if you want to take it a step further with being original and one-of-a-kind, thrifting or some sort of DIY is such a creative option. A vintage dress or a dress with a few of your own DIY touches could make a very cute Homecoming outfit.

So clearly there are a lot of options to explore. No matter what your dress or outfit looks like and where you got it, make sure to wear it confidently (confidence is half the outfit) and have a good time in Neverland.