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Coral and emerald and sunflower and silver, long and short and mermaid and princess, satin and tulle and sparkly and glowing, sequined and rhinestoned and ruffled and sweeping.
They’re prom dresses, about 1,500 of them, and they’re currently lining the racks at the Say Yes to the Prom Dress Boutique, an annual springtime pop-up where seniors and juniors attending Connecticut schools are invited to shop for the promwear of their dreams without paying a penny. Since this year’s grand opening on April 13, hundreds of girls, often accompanied by their mothers or friends, have enjoyed the time-honored ritual of finding the perfect dress for the big night—maybe shoes and accessories, too.
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The master of this ceremony before all the ceremony is Khalilah Abdulrahim (pictured first), running the shop each year under the auspices of Project Hope, the New Haven-based youth empowerment nonprofit she directs. Abdulrahim has been leading the Say Yes initiative—“my baby,” she says, and Project Hope’s largest—since informally launching it in 2010. That year, a couple of high school seniors she knew told her they weren’t planning on going to prom because they couldn’t afford the attire. So Abdulrahim appealed to friends and family and collected about 30 dresses for the girls to choose from. Once the girls had made their choices, Abdulrahim planned to bring the remainder to Goodwill—until the girls came back and told her their friends wanted in too. The first formal Say Yes shop popped up the following year.
“It’s special, because we get to offer dresses to girls who wouldn’t have the chance to go to prom
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The dresses, many brand new, are donated by the community at large as well as numerous partners including Atiana’s Boutique, Executive Cleaners, Jordan’s Furniture and The Shops at Yale. Abdulrahim estimates she’s got another 1,500 dresses not on display with more donations coming, so the inventory is comprehensive and frequently refreshed. “We have every type of dress and style that you can think of, from vintage all the way up to modern,” with fits for “all shapes and sizes,” she says. “We have bedazzled dresses, we have plain dresses, we have fitted dresses, we have dresses with long trains. We have it all.”
And thanks to Say Yes to the Prom Dress, so can Connecticut’s teen girls.
Say Yes to the Prom Dress
83 Audubon St, New Haven (map)
Mon-Fri 3-8pm, Sat 9am-5pm through May 4
projecthopect@gmail.com
Project Hope | Boutique Flyer
Written and photographed by Dan Mims.
