What makes a dress cost _______?

[theAnnelis]

This something I'm just extremely curious about.

For example, I saw a couple Dore dresses at Manhattan Dancesport one year. One had a luxe, chandelle feather-trimmed skirt and was completely covered in rhinestones. One of Danielle Karagach's, which she had worn the year before at the same competition. $2500.

One that was made of meshy spandex that had appliques on it and sparse feather trim. Barely any rhinestones. Worn by Anna Kovalova two years before, not the same comp. Four grand.

So obviously, I thought the one that was covered in rhinestones would cost more, but I was wrong. So I've been wondering for years. What makes a dance dress cost, for example, six thousand dollars versus 1200?

It can't only be the name on it or the type of rhinestones used, can it, as these dresses were both previously worn and also from the same design house...

Thoughts?

 

[mindputtee]

Without seeing the dresses in question, it can be difficult to say. It can depend on the complexity of the design. Just because something doesn't have a lot of rhinestones doesn't mean it didn't take a lot of time to put together. Appliques and feathers can cost a lot as well, and different kinds of feathers cost differently. The name certainly can mean something (neither of those names mean much to me as I don't follow latin) too, there's the thought of "if it's good enough for her it's good enough for me!". It could also be that, in the case of used dresses particularly, they wanted to get it out of their supply and recoup their costs on it so it's "priced to sell" whereas a more expensive dress they may be happy to carry around to use as a display piece to attract customers or as an example for custom orders so they price it higher so it'll only sell to someone who really wants it.

 

[rels77]

Often, previously worn dresses that have been worn by sponsored pros are actually sold as new dresses (which I hate), but it's done. So the first one might have actually been sold to someone after the pro wore it and then sold back on consignment, therefore a used dress- so $2500. (Which it sounds like for the price). The 4K dress was probably only worn by a pro or two, therefore still "new" (which I disagree with) and so still had a new price tag. Or the 4K was a discounted new price tag.

I just tried on a dress at designs to shine at Ohio that I knew was used and it was about 6 years old. They number them by year so it was obvious. It was worn, needed some work. They tried to tell me that it a great deal on a sponsored dress only worn a few times. For $6500. They're new dresses are $7500 so it was an amazing deal! I laughed out loud. When they asked me my price range and I said it wasn't about my range, it was about what it was worth- and no way was a used 6 year old dress worth 15% off what a new one would cost.

Point is - with some designers- the answer is "what they can get from it". But for the big designers, the price of a dress also needs to include the overhead of vending at comps, the workshop and design studio, travel and shipping to vend, marketing, etc.

That said, I've had dresses made by independent dressmakers and the materials alone have cost over $2000, so I no longer balk at 4K dresses like I used to.

 

[Dancing Irishman]

It can also be material scarcity driving up the cost for the fabric / trims, to expand on MP's point. For example, my coach's partner had a design for this year's dutch open that used a massive amount of beaded citrine color fringe - Chrisanne was the only supplier and that drove the materials along through the roof. Coach and his partner pay cost of materials only due to being sponsored by the dressmaker, and it was still more expensive than unsponsored Vesa outfits they've purchased. Another local pro paid an arm and a leg buying stones for her blackpool dress this past year because she picked a unique enough stone color that she had to buy multiple vendors out of their stock to get enough sparkles in time for the comp. So maybe the feathers and / or appliques are a more scarce / expensive material than you realize, while the stones on Karagach's dress were relatively run of the mill, buy them 100-gross-at-a-time purchases for Dore.

Construction methods could also drive it up. Adding trim to a hem and heavy stoning are both relatively mindless so Dore could probably assign both to the most junior person in their shop, but the appliques and sparse trim on Kovalova's dress sound like they'd require someone more senior to ensure that it's done exactly right the first time. Even producing with expensive materials like ballgowns do, I'd still wager that over 50% of the cost is labor / mark-up on the labor.

It can also be the name attached. Daniella is still up-and-coming while I think Anna Kovalova is more well-known among those who follow high-level Latin, so the second dress could have been marked up for the cache involved.

 

[Joe]

Cachet?

 

[fascination]

part of it can be how much the person who is selling it, through Dore' wants as their cut.....you can sell a used dress through dore for cash or credit toward a new dress, they are going to take a cut, the rest of the cost is what the seller wants for it....

 

[Loki]

Somebody told me 30% of the selling price on consignment is typical but WTHDIK?

 

[fascination]

that is generally true of direct re-sale....but I think that if both the dress owner and the dress maker are taking a cut, it might be different...I know that whenever I have tried to re-sell through someone else rather than directly, I have only been in charge of what my bottom number is, not what they decide to try to sell it for

 

[JoeB]

Same thing as most overpriced products; gullible people willing to pay that much.

Ask around for hobbyist seamstresses in your area. I have a friend who makes a lot of her best dresses, and except for the lack of tags, you'd swear they came from a high-end store.

 

[danceronice]

Same thing as most overpriced products; gullible people willing to pay that much.

Ask around for hobbyist seamstresses in your area. I have a friend who makes a lot of her best dresses, and except for the lack of tags, you'd swear they came from a high-end store.

Eh...I'd have to see comparable stoning to believe that. I stone dresses and I *know* I don't do it as well as the high-end designers. (I typically spend 8-10 hours on it, I suspect the biggest-price dresses are more like 20-40 on stoning and beading alone.) There are basically two of us with B. who wear high-end gowns and while the dresses most of the other girls wear are...okay, I mean I couldn't sew them, if you look at one next to my Dress4Dance Latin or one of J.'s DtS gowns? The quality of the $3-4000 gowns is visibly superior, from the fabric and construction to the decorating. Heck, I have a hard time with off-the-rack regular clothing now, as everything feels cheap and badly-made.

 

[JudeMorrigan]

Ballroom wear is pretty specialized. The difference between what my (sponsored) pro wears and what lower and ams who wear stuff made by a local seamstress is rather palpable.

 

[Dancing Irishman]

Ballroom wear is pretty specialized. The difference between what my (sponsored) pro wears and what lower and ams who wear stuff made by a local seamstress is rather palpable.

This. One of my friends used a less well-known, more affordable designer for her latin costume, and the results were quite good for the <$3k price tag. But it pales in comparison to her name-brand, more expensive standard dress which she just had made, which is pretty jaw-dropping in terms of design quality and execution.

JoeB, ballroom competition wear is much higher in terms of aesthetic polish and athletic functionality required than day-to-day wear so it's unlikely any hobby sewer would have a chance of replicating the results of a high-end ballroom designer without substantial trial-and-error effort to develop their skills (they could probably compete with the knockoffs from East Asia, but even then they'd fall flat their first try or three). And FWIW, people who really have an eye for clothes probably can tell the difference between your friend's creations and really high-end clothing. Fortunately, they're not the people she's concerned with fooling.

 

[fascination]

there can also be a significant gap in quality even among the big name dress makers...don't assume that just because it has a 4k tag that it looks like a 4 k costume

 

[mindputtee]

Same thing as most overpriced products; gullible people willing to pay that much.

Ask around for hobbyist seamstresses in your area. I have a friend who makes a lot of her best dresses, and except for the lack of tags, you'd swear they came from a high-end store.

I consider myself a "pretty good" seamstress, not quite high end designer quality, but I don't think my dresses would look frumpy next to a designer dress, and even so I will easily spend $600-700 on materials alone. I don't use a lot of feathers (which are very expensive), or do intricate bead work which I've seen on a lot of the high end dresses. I do use swarovski and am relatively generous with them. If I were to consider the time it takes to make the dresses too and rate that at about $30 an hour (which is pretty reasonable if you're going to be making a living at it), that could easily rack up to a couple thousand, and that's not counting any overhead, advertising, vending, keeping a stock of premade dresses, etc etc etc. It's not just gullibility, it's what has to be paid since it's a niche market with specific demands, there aren't a ton of customers so you have to make enough off each one.

 

[FancyFeet]

Agreed. I make my own dresses... and don't use any crazy-fancy trims or materials, but they still cost a significant amount. My standard dresses - sticking to a budget of roughly $15/m for fabric and shopping around - run me between $0.9k and $1.5k just for materials, depending on exchange rate and how many stones I decide to use (I'm tall and like full skirts, which means lots of material, and I also use top quality stones)... and then they take me about 60 hours of labour. No more simple, lightly stoned dresses for me

My latin dress was a little less expensive, as I used quite a few leftover things from previous projects and chose a simple design, but was still about $300 for materials and 25 hours of labour.

($ cited above are Canadian ones.)