Prom dress shopping as a plus-size teen can exacerbate body image issues. But there can be joy, too.

Prom is a rite of passage for high schoolers to celebrate and commemorate their high school years. It's a moment that's immortalized in pop culture and held up as a touchstone by generations past as a formative night of teenagerdom. But if having a perfect prom night includes wearing the perfect prom dress — some say they're excluded from the experience.

"Being a plus-size young woman, it's really hard to find clothes in general, let alone prom dresses," Tylilah Williams, an 18-year-old from Norfolk, Va., tells Yahoo Life. "So I had already gone into the situation just knowing I wasn't going to find anything."

The teen explains that prom dress shopping is "one of the major reasons" she wasn't sure about attending prom at all. It'd be a special night to reunite with her peers, after having graduated Maury High School one year early to take courses at a community college. Shopping gave her apprehension.

"I already know there's probably not going to be a lot of options, especially for me," she says." I just know."

She's not alone in that feeling. Rebecca Rabin, 29, still recalls the insecurity that she experienced herself when she struggled to find a prom dress as both a high school junior and senior over a decade ago.

"I really don't remember junior prom. And my assumption is that I don't remember junior prom because I was just so uncomfortable," Rabin says of her first prom at Pascack Hills High School in Montvale, New Jersey in 2011. "If I think about what I wore, compared to the rest of my friends, it was so different because I couldn't fit into the dresses that they were buying."

Rabin attended prom during the era of Facebook photo albums, where high schoolers documented all of their events. The "archives of prom photos" still exist on her friends's pages today, however, evidence on her personal page has been erased. "I untagged myself in every single picture," she says.

It's less about how she looked on prom day and more about how preparing for the event made her feel. She recalls "always being the bigger girl" in her friend group.

"I was pushing away that experience of going prom dress shopping with my mom and with my friends and all the other girls, because it was just something that I couldn't even handle," Rabin explains. "I tried to hide the fact that I was bigger. It was not something that I would ever talk about, because I didn't want it to be a thing. I didn't want other people thinking about it."

Walking into a store with her peers to discover that her size wasn't carried would blow her cover.

"I was probably like a [size] 14, 16 by senior year and most dresses didn't go up that high," she says. "Like 12 was the biggest you were gonna get."

During her shopping experience, Williams found one dress she liked at her local David's Bridal, but it wasn't available in her size. For her, that was the end of the road.

"I won't be attending prom," she explains. "It's just what I thought would be best for me."

'This stuff isn't for me, it's not built for me'

"When folks encounter this difficulty finding clothing in their size, whether that is in general or for a special occasion like prom, really, I feel the message that they are receiving about themselves is that something is wrong with their bodies," Sarah Landolfi, a psychotherapist specializing in fat acceptance, tells Yahoo Life. "People internalize this message that their bodies don't belong."

Landolfi cites a 2018 study from retail analytics firm Edited which determined that plus sizes make up just 2.3% of women's apparel assortment within 25 of the largest multi-brand retailers. That statistic impacts all women in that size category, however, shopping can feel particularly exclusionary for a teen.

"It's this pervasive experience that fat people have starting at a very early age of just kind of realizing like, this stuff isn't for me, it's not built for me," Landolfi says. "That just takes a really significant toll over their lifespan."

'Her body is valid'

Summer Lucille, who owns Juicy Body Goddess, a plus-size only boutique in Charlotte, North Carolina, is all too familiar with the mark that it leaves.

"Prom was terrible," she tells Yahoo Life. "High school being a fat girl was just a terrible experience from trying to find clothes to how people treated me."

She recalls wearing "the ugliest dress that was ever made for anybody" because she was so limited in her options. "My dress was the only thing I could fit. And that's why I had to get it," she says.

Making sure that other young women don't encounter the same limitations is her mission.

"I provide fashion for the girls that are not heard," she says, "plus-size women from size 10, 12, all the way up to the size 32, 34. So I try to reach all ranges of the plus-size community. I fit every body type, I try to get every type of style, so we have options."

While the various body shapes within that size range often aren't accommodated by the fashion industry at large, Lucille says her experience in a plus-size body is what makes her store unique.

"I know a majority of our insecurities and only somebody who's lived this plus-size life would know. It's nothing you can just read on Google or pull out in a book. You have to live and experience it," she says.

The validation and comfort that she also provides to girls is invaluable to their body image, which Lucille fears is oftentimes damaged by these negative experiences.

"It can be a gateway to a very toxic way of thinking about ourselves. The start of this vicious cycle of self-hate," she says of not fitting in, in a literal sense, during adolescence. "So now I feel that dressing these girls is healing me by unpacking that trauma I had as a little girl going into adulthood, blossoming into a woman. I get the opportunity to be a positive influence in their lives to let them know that it's OK to be chubby, it's OK to be fat, it's OK not to look like everybody else. It makes you different and you still deserve to be loved. You shouldn't be treated any other different way because of your size."

Paula Edwards-Gayfield, a licensed professional counselor and contributing National Eating Disorders Association (NEDA) expert, says that reassurance is crucial amid the pressure facing teens.

"Body image absolutely is a heightened experience around prom time," she tells Yahoo Life, explaining that expectations of the event lead people to overthink their need to prepare. "There's so much self objectification and self surveillance in many ways. ...An individual starts to become a little bit more obsessive about maybe counting their calories or how much they're burning, how much they're exercising. Prom kind of creates this or reinforces this for many individuals as they're looking for that perfect something to wear."

Elyse Monroe, an 18-year-old from Manteo, North Carolina, may have been sheltered from a negative experience as a result of her shopping experience at Lucille's boutique.

Monroe's mom, Faatimah Gibbs, tells Yahoo Life that she was worried about finding a senior prom dress for her size 22-24 teen, who typically shops at Target, Eloqui, Old Navy and Fashion Nova. "Last year, we ended up at David's Bridal with maybe two dresses to choose from. So there was some concern until we found Juicy Body Goddess on TikTok," Gibbs says.

The teen's shopping spree became one of many of Lucille's prom dress consultations to go viral on social media as onlookers were thrilled to see Monroe sort through a number of options. The experience, and the outpouring of online support, made Monroe "feel more confident in her body and what she wears," Gibbs says. "Her body is valid."

Countless other positive experiences have been shared on Lucille's platform as she's gained notoriety for providing a safe space for plus-size teens to shop. The store owner says it's all about "making sure the little fat girl is thought of and knows that she's wanted and she's beautiful."

If you or someone you know is struggling with an eating disorder please visit the National Eating Disorders (NEDA) website at nationaleatingdisorders.org for more information.

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