Short prom dresses are definitely the trend these days. The only problem is, a lot of short prom dresses are too short.
When I go to the malls in my area, I am seeing a lot of dresses that I would characterize as cocktail dresses. They’re very pretty. But most of them aren’t quite long enough. They are clearly designed to hit about 4″ above the knee, which is about mid-thigh on a girl of average height. On a tall girl, these dresses are actually tunic length.
And that’s when you’re standing up. When you sit down, almost all of these dresses will ride up at least a few inches.
So if too-short prom dresses are all that’s available in your area – or if you’re tall, and all the dresse are too short – what can you do?
There are actually several ways to lengthen a too-short prom dress, depending on the dress style. (All of these ideas work for both short and long prom dresses.)
A lot of short prom dresses have an underlayer with a band of gathered tulle at the bottom which is designed to peek out from under the dress. You can make a dress longer by adding a thickly-gathered band of tulle behind the existing tulle. Most dresses have a lining that you can attach tulle to even if it doesn’t already have any.
Some short dresses are balloon-style – they have an overlayer that is gathered at the bottom, looped back up inside, and attached to a slim lining. Balloon-style dresses can typically be lengthened 4-6″ just by detaching the overlayer from the lining, then letting it hang straight down.
And finally, some short dresses have pickup points: the skirts are bunched up and tacked to an inner lining to create poufs of fabric all over. You can lengthen a short prom dress that has pickup points simply by snipping some or all of the pickup points. Usually, a pickup point takes up 4-6″ of material, so sometimes a dress with pickup points can be lengthened significantly. If you are concerned about ruining the design of the dress, you can re-attach the pickup points, just making them a little less deep.