Looking for the prom dress is a very exciting thing for all girls near the end of the school year. They are focused on their dresses for almost one to two months before the party.

When they decide to buy a dress, they tend to focus on the style of dress as a major factor in dress buying. I understand all girls want to be the best dresser at the party; most likely looks are a major factor for their decision.

There are some basic guidelines on how you can buy a better dress with your limited budget. You need to consider four major things when buying dress: quality, design (style, trend), availability (alteration, custom order), and finally price.

First, quality is quite subjective, but there should be some standard understanding on how we define if a dress has quality or not. Quality is a vague concept to most people but can be characterized into two factors. One is fabric, and the other one is sewing.

Fabric is like the skin of the dress. Fabric itself can completely change the image of a dress. This is the first thing you need to consider when buying a quality dress. Sewing is another important factor. The straight thread line, curb, single or double lines of thread are routine sewing methods to manufacture any piece of clothing. You can observe that all quality dresses have good sewing that follow the correct line of the dress. All good sewing has to be done by long-term experienced garment workers. These two key factors help determine the quality of a dress.

Second, the design/style or trend of a dress is a very important element for high quality dresses. Style is the unique shape of the dress and its pattern. The shape can be long, short, ball gown, and tee length. The dresses color can be solid, mixed, or print. Trend is the mood and color of the current time. Some people just follow trends regardless of its shape and design. Trends are made by the most influential leading designers in the dress community.

Third, availability is also important. Many girls overlook the stock availability. They think all dresses are always available and are ready to be sold, but in reality, sometimes, you might not be able to find your favorable dress. Many good designed dresses are sold early, and it takes some time to refill stock. If you are in that situation, your dress might not be available. Also, some dresses require custom alterations or custom orders that take time to be made and delivered. Thus, you need to start looking for dresses 2 to 3 months earlier than the day of the prom.

Finally, price is the last major factor in dress buying. The bottom line is how much you would like to spend. It is largely affected by whether you buy brand name designer dresses or not. Designer dresses are usually at least 2 to 3 times more expensive than non-designer dresses. If you can afford it, designer dresses are fine, but if you think the price is not justifiable, you may choose non-designer dresses with a similar design or pattern. I recommend you should always buy a good dress within your budget.

You will have a good time searching for the dress. Hopefully, the four major factors I mentioned here, quality, design, availability and price will be your guideline to dress buying. Personally, if I were you I would try to find a dress under $200 which has good quality and affordable price.