Oxford balls are ridiculously expensive and socially discriminatory

[funnyperson]

Well just that, really. Assuming that a student is sociable enough to have friends at different colleges, it is nice to be able to think of going to a number of different balls, especially in the summer. Except that the 'cheap' ball tickets are £85 and more usually £120. A young student recently won free tickets to two balls, totalling £210. Given that the balls are the main college social events this is sad. Min budget for tickets to go to, say, 5 balls a year including the Union ball but excluding a law society ball would be £700. The rich, in short, only dance with the rich.

[exexpat]

My favourite one (25 years ago) came from Oxfam - long black velvet 1930s evening dress, very elegant, cost about £15 as far as I remember. No idea what people do these days, but I'd suggest your daughter discusses it with any friends of hers who are also going.

Some people in my day (late 80s) wore hugely expensive puffy ball gowns from London designers, but that wasn't my style or my budget. My friends and I were much more Oxfam/borrow your mum's or granny's old one/make something yourself out of curtain material types. I expect vintage style may still be popular. A lot of borrowing went on, too, if you had a friend going to a ball on a different night - I think the 24-hour dry cleaning services did good business in May week.

[stealthsquiggle]

funnyperson - for some reason there was a bit of a phase of making otherwise innocuous events "black tie" when I was at college - so even though we didn't go to many balls, house parties combined with boat club dinners and the like meant there were quite a lot of occasions needing dresses. We had 2 approaches:

1. A fabulous secondhand/vintage shop in Little Clarendon Street which is sadly no longer there
   

1. Sharing. Every dress I owned went to events with at least 4 other people over it's time with me. "Black tie" dresses were a pooled resource as far as we were concerned.
   

I would imagine vintage from ebay is quite a popular option nowadays?

[stealthsquiggle]

x-post with exexpat there

My absolute favourite was actually bought for my sixth form dance - circa 1950, low low back (an underwear challenge) and about 2 full circles of fabric in the floor length skirt. It was utterly gorgeous, completely different from anything being sold at the time (same era as exexpat) and I wish I knew where it was, as I am sure it would now be worth a damned sight more than the £50 I paid for it at the time. There were almost fights over who got to wear that one.

[funnyperson]

Colour?

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

There's a decent second-hand/cheapie dress shop on the Plain, just off Cowley Road. There is also still a second-hand shop on Little Clarendon, though presumably not the same one. There's also a good shop in the market.

[stealthsquiggle]

Black, with a white trim around the neck/back. It was beautifully understated.

I loved that dress

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

That does sound gorgeous.

I had a black and white polka-dot dress with a net underskirt and a halter neck I wore to mine. I loved it and I still have it but it would these days be slightly more full-on since I no longer have the B cups I did back then. It was 29.99 from Topshop. Very extravegant.

[stealthsquiggle]

LRD I owned that dress too (or something remarkably like it, which came from topshop). The edges of the net shredded my tights the first time I wore it, so I spent hours hand-sewing bias binding around the bottom edge of the net. I wore it once to a 21st birthday of a very well-off friend's sister. Everyone else there seemed to have gone to Harvey Nicks for their dresses, but there was another girl in a dress identical to mine, so there was lots of "oooh, where did you get it?" - we both declined to comment

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

Oh, wow! We obviously have the same taste. But I wore it with fishnets, so no fraying.

I do love cheapie dresses in a room full of posh ones. I keep fancying a Vivien of Holloway replacement, too.

I've got to say, one of the things I love about living where I live is I get to see students dressing up and doing all their stuff and it is very sweet, really.

[LRDtheFeministDragon]

(She says, patronizingly. )

[Caitycat]

I really think your daughter is better placed than any of us to know what to wear and where to get it. Her friends will chat amongst themselves about what they will wear and can shop together and find the right look. Don't worry about it, I'm sure that between a few shopping trips and a thorough online search she'll find something perfect - it's part of the fun!

[stealthsquiggle]

Very true, CaityCat - I was just having fun wallowing in nostalgia. My DM was certainly not involved in any dress decisions of mine.

[notcitrus]

I got a velvet dress from Laura Ashley back in the day, in a sale
It proved to be a great choice being red wine coloured, so showed up no stains, and was nearly floor length so I used to wear it with Doc Martens boots and no-one noticed, except once when a woman pointed and said "What a *** great idea!"
And machine washable. :)

Wore a male friend's black tie for some of them, too.

I think the Oxford ball I did that had Boney M was one of my favourites.

[SCOTCHandWRY]

For formal events - tk maxx is your friend!

[Copthallresident]

My ballgown was Celia Birtwell, in the sale and must have been some sort of poor person's line, bought in the horrible new Arndale arcade in a small northern town but it was absolutely gorgeous, made me look like Great Garbo (if you didn't look above the neck) and I wore it to rags, not because I went to so many balls but because it went on for a decade. Mum had quite a collection and had it valued recently ...especially the fur coat

Balls are now an issue at all unis, and it is a decision they make based on their financial priorities. £100 on a ticket or pissed against the wall, or ask Mummy but they all seem to have themes, DD took the dressing up box off to uni with her rather than a wardrobe of designer frocks

[libelulle]

I don't know ANYONE who ever went to 5 balls, except if they were playing at them at got free tickets. And actually I'm amazed how little the prices have gone up in nearly 20 (arg!!!) years.

[Yellowtip]

It's up to £170 for a single ticket libelulle but five a year paying for yourself would be very, very unusual. Kit doesn't seem to need to be expensive at all. If buying vintage on ebay just don't make the mistake of buying from anywhere abroad which will incur customs fees. Big mistake. Especially if you then loathe the thing and want to send it back.

[Yellowtip]

Funny mine have all rejected a seriously beautiful original vintage (1985) Caroline Charles dress of mine - 1920's style flapper, Italian silk, bought from CC herself in a previous life (mine, not hers) - in favour of tat. Some balls need floor length was one excuse. Anything which looks good is fine, no-one will be looking at labels.

[TheCollieDog]

But it is fun out of the pocket of our family

I don't understand this: are you saying that your family subsidises the people you see as "rich" going to the May balls, when your DC cannot? How?

[funnyperson]

Collie I was saying we couldn't afford all the balls, in a somewhat badly put sentence. I was worried that the richer students would be going and so having more fun. But the thread has been very helpful so I'm a lot less worried (not worried at all any more in fact).

Your gown sounds lovely, yellowtip
The customs advice comes too late. Before DD started at Oxford I had this completely misguided notion that she must go up with a ball gown 'just in case' (I suppose I was brought up with the idea from my mother that a young lady should always have something nice to wear for an unexpected special occasion).
Anyway we settled on a brightly coloured floor length silk chiffon gown made to measure by a company in China, which, when it arrived, was really OTT and turned out to have a seriously embarrassing train- which had to be cut off and re hemmed at home- and the upper bodice didn't fit and practically had to be re-sewn: as it was when it arrived it was totally unsuitable for an 18 year old in this century! And to crown it all, the customs bill arrived a week or so later and the reasonably priced gown didn't seem so reasonably priced any more. It was a fedex bill btw and it took a while for the penny to drop that it was a customs bill.

The feminist group at college appear to be organising a gown swap.

I am planning a trip to potter round Harvey Nics (for design ideas) and the fabric dept at John Lewis, just for interest and not serious at this stage, though if anyone has suitable provenly successful ball gown dress patterns please pm me.

[Yellowtip]

Oh dear funny, sorry I was too late :( Yes, DD2 and DD3 have both been stung by the waspish customs bills because they both bought vintage from the US. DD2's overseas vintage failed to arrive on the eve of the ball last June, or rather it had been sent to the wrong sorting office up in Summertown, not Cowley, where the postmen were scratching their heads. I intervened on the grounds that DD2 is an airhead, got to the bottom of the mystery of the missing parcel, and there ensued a mad dash by DD1 and DD2 to the Summertown sorting office (all three went to this particular ball). Naturally, having liberated the large parcel from Summertown, DD2 tried it on in DD1's room only to find she hated it. Meanwhile, the other side of town, DD3, having paid an extortionate amount for customs for a beautiful vintage Ralph Lauren which she had bought months ahead and which fitted her perfectly and was just completely right, rejected it in favour of some other thing which had caught her eye on the High St. and which brought her to the brink of her overdraft, saying she'd ebay the Ralph Lauren (which she still hasn't done).

I completely love the idea of a train .

[funnyperson]

Haha yes the train was superb: I had a moment of feeling sorry DD wasn't about to step out as first lady in front of millions, however it soon passed when I saw her look of horror!
So what did DD1 wear? And did they have a wonderful time?

[Yellowtip]

DD1 borrowed and looked great (I was shown the fb pictures). She's the one with her head screwed on, sartorially speaking (same college as your DD of course :)). I think it was good. I think DD3 may have been nursing quite a headache the next day judging by the mutually corroborative reports of DDs 1 and 2....

Is this an in-house one your DD is going to funny? She missed the 400th anniversary one, just.

[funnyperson]

Yes, so highly unlikely to be anything very formal.