After you’ve danced the night away at homecoming, is your gorgeous homecoming dress doomed to a dark and dusty life in the back of your closet? It certainly doesn’t need to end that way! There are many ways to keep your homecoming dance dress living its best life. Here are a few ways you can reuse your homecoming dress:
- Dress Up Again: Do you have other semi-formal events on the horizon? Many schools have two to three semi-casual to semi-formal dances or socials for students to enjoy throughout the year. You can also rewear your homecoming dress to dances in other schools if you've got friends in other districts too! Just change up your look each time with different accessories to mix things up. Semi-formal dance dresses almost always fit right in at weddings and sweet 16 parties too.
- Swap with Friends: Since homecoming happens every year, you could swap styles with your friends so that you all have a new look without spending more money. The junior dresses get reused, and you all get new looks! Bonus points if you all have similar shoe sizes to swap those dress shoes too! And really, you should just have fun with the whole experience, so feel free to set up a little dress-swap party with your besties. Get together with some music and food, try on all the homecoming dresses and accessories, and experiment with hair, nail, and makeup styles.
- Use It for Halloween: Why not be a homecoming queen for next Halloween? Rewear your homecoming dress and add in a crown, a bouquet, title sash, or other glam accessories to complete the queenly image. Or, if you don’t plan to use the dress again for a fancy event, you could even add rips and makeup to it for a scary zombie-esque hoco queen costume!
- Sell It: Since it's only been worn once, you might be able to sell your homecoming dress as long as it's still in good condition. Offer it locally in community socials or look into resale platforms and see if you can make some extra cash. This is a great way to start saving up for prom season too!
- Alter for a New Look: Consider having your homecoming dress tailored or altered in some way to create a brand new look. This is especially fun if you've got a seamstress in the family who can do it for free or teach you how, making it your own little project! If you've got a long homecoming dress, consider having your style hemmed for a short design that will work well as a cocktail or summer dress later. If you've got a short hoco dress and the top is embellished, you might be able to separate it to create a two-piece design, mixing and matching the top and skirt with jeans or a simple shirt for multiple semi-casual looks that are so chic! Depending on the style, you might even be able to have your homecoming dress altered into a formal jumpsuit or romper. This option is much more likely if your hoco dress is a flowy style with extra fabric to work with, but consult an expert to be sure before you start snipping.
- Get Creative with Upcycling: When you know you'll never wear it again, but you're also so nostalgic about all the memories that you just can't let it go yet...upcycling to the rescue! Use the hoco dress fabric to make mini decorative pillows, quilted ornaments, hair accessories, or a memory stuffy (either the whole stuffed animal made from the homecoming dress material or a mini hoco dress to be worn by your favorite stuffy). You can even cut each homecoming dress you get each year of high school into squares and, once you've got all four years represented, turn them into a memory quilt or blanket! Add prom styles in there too if you want a bigger blanket with even more memories stored.
- Donate It: When you’re all done with your homecoming dress, consider donating it! This way, others can wear your homecoming dress again as a new-to-them style. If you fell in love with it, then someone else is sure to be ecstatic at the chance to wear it too.
No matter how you choose to reuse or rewear your homecoming dress, it’s great to know it’s not destined to collect closet dust bunnies! If you’ve already got a semi-formal dress that’s ready to be worn again, have fun planning its next adventure! If you’re still shopping for your homecoming dress, be sure to check out PromGirl’s collection of short hoco dresses and long homecoming dresses, then rest easy knowing that you can get more than one use out of your purchase.
