When Carryover = Cryover

What is a carryover style? It's a style from a past season that a designer decides has been successful enough to continue offering. So any dress that is part of a collection but not from the current season is a carryover style. It's a good thing in a lot of ways- if every dress only lasted for one season, customers would have such a short window to buy them, and the longer you keep a dress available, the more opportunity there is to sell it, right?

I understand why designers want to keep dresses that have been successful in their lineup. If it's sold well in the past, it may continue to do so in the future. The problem is when you end up having dresses that are 4 or more seasons old. Even 3 can be pushing it (so it's almost fall 2011 now, 3 seasons back would be Spring 2010.) Bridesmaids the turnaround is a little slower than bridal, I would say. Most stores move old things out as new things come along- there just isn't room to keep every current style around. So, the older a style is, the less likely it is you will be able to find one to see in person.

That's when a carryover will become a cryover. A bride will see a picture of the dress online, think it's amazing, and then won't be able to find it anywhere. If she had never seen the picture, it wouldn't be a big deal. But some people get obsessed with thatpicture, and then compare everything else they see to it, which of course is hopeless, because if you can't see the dress in person, you can't know for sure that it's better. At this point some people just take the leap and go for it, but not everyone can do that. Some people have to see it in person, so they literally end up crying over a. Most designers don't put information about what season a dress is on their website, so you can't necessarily tell how old it is. In general, the farther you have to scroll down or the more pages back you go, the older, but not always.

So, how to avoid this potential pitfall? I would say, if you are a person who needs to see something in person to know it's the one, don't let yourself obsess over anything you see online. Be suspicious of everything. Get some ideas before you try things on, but then wait to see what you can find in person. Magazines will be a little safer, as long as they are recent. Anything more than a year old, don't even go there. Then you won't end up crying over a dress you can never see!