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SALT LAKE CITY -- It's become a bit of a niche for many Utah stores that offer modest prom dresses, bridal gowns and dresses for other special occasions, but that doesn't mean the dresses are easy to find.
"When we go to market, everything we see is half bare," says Judy Miller, owner of the Fairy Godmother's Bridal store. "I've questioned a salesman and said, 'Would you let your 16-year-old daughter wear that?' ‘No,' [was his reply]. 'Then why would you sell it?'"
Mormon Times:
Miller won't order dresses that go too far down or too far up.
"My dresses have more fabric than skin," she says.
She also offers services to girls and their moms who wish to alter the dresses -- to add jackets, scarves or shawls.
Locally, Miller said it isn't too difficult a sell. In fact, she thinks in many places there's more peer pressure to cover up than to uncover.
But others, like Eddie Gist, who runs Modesty by Design, say they've seen battles.
"Some girls think modesty shouldn't apply to special occasions," Gist says. "But I think modesty is modesty."
Gist and his partners thought their offering of modest gowns -- he won't buy a sleeveless dress -- would just appeal to a small niche here in Utah, but he says he gets sales over the Internet from around the country.
In some areas, the "Mormon Times" reports Latter-day Saint Young Women's groups are taking a unique approach. It says more and more of them are hosting their own modest prom fashion shows, events that are attracting more than the LDS crowd.
Back in Utah, by the way, Miller thinks she's found another niche in the prom and bridal dress market: dresses for girls and women sizes 12 and up.
"All of the statistics show that we, as a culture, are getting bigger," she says. "You can go just as pretty and just as good, and all these dresses are made to give the girls a pretty figure."
Miller says she had one woman come in this week who was told by a bridal shop they had nothing for her, that she was too big.
"And it turned out that she was a size 12," Miller says.
E-mail: mgiauque@ksl.com
