BLENDNEWYORK

Call it style with a cause. Prom Boutique, a hip long island charity, is in full collection mode. The program, which started almost 20 years ago, collects gently worn formal wear and donates it to girls on Long Island who cannot easily afford a new prom dress.

“They are thrilled to be giving their dresses new legs,” said Lola Intagliata of Clear Skin Salon. “They enjoyed wearing it at their prom, now they’re looking forward to having another girl have the experience they had.”

Collection sites are located all over the island, including at a West Hempstead salon. The dresses are then gathered and brought to a larger space at the end of April where the girls can shop ’til they drop. Each girl receives a free dress with accessories and on the spot alterations. The charity collects about 3,000 dresses per year.

“They’re allowed to shop for dresses, they find their sizes, it’s all color coordinated,” said Anne Sprotte, Prom Boutique coordinator. “And they go into the fitting room and they come out and their eyes are sparkling, their moms are crying.”

Donors are happy to make those moments possible. They say have no reservations about letting go of their fine threads.

“I got such great use out of the dress when I got to use it myself and I know what the dress meant to me,” one donor said. “I hope someone would get the same enjoyment out of it.”

You can donate your formal wear before April 22.

www.longislandvolunteercenter.org

(by Ashley Mastronardi – original source here)

There was something decidedly less precious about Alexis Mabille’s girl this season. His show notes described a girl who’s in touch with her masculine side yet sticks to her womanly ways. That dose of sartorial testosterone seemed to be just the thing to temper Mabille’s saccharine leanings. Banker stripes merged surprisingly well with white lace as trim on sweet little shirtdresses, and even better when inset in the sleeves of a crisp button-down. One of Mabille’s twists was the shirt formed into a bustier, its sleeves knotted into a bow. One slip and it could have felt gimmicky, but he got it right, particularly on two evening looks near the end of the show. In fact, the best things skewed very XY, like another evening option of an hourglass-shaped waistcoat and sleek, toreador-style pants with the tiniest flourish of a Mabille bow at the calf. Inspired by the cinematography of the film The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, the show was staged in a picture-perfect greenhouse at the Jardin des Serres d’Auteuil. That gave Mabille full rein with the Laura Ashley florals in the middle of the show, which, when combined with tasseled fringe and lace, recalled a little girl’s ticky-tacky bedroom circa 1984. And in that vein, we can excuse it as a passing phase. (by Meenal Mistry style.com)