Dress IQ
Ordering, alterations, the timeline nobody tells you, and what the shop won’t say.
Dress IQ is for the one buying the dress. Dresses take months, alterations take weeks, and the shoes come before the hem. Everyone learns this once. You are learning it now, for free.
The 9 questions
- Seven months is forever — The date is set, the dress is a tab you keep opening. It’s made to order. How much time is that, really?
- The number on the chart — You’re between two sizes on the designer’s chart. The order form has one box.
- The first fitting — The dress arrived. The wedding is a date. The first fitting goes how many weeks before it? Slide.
- A heel is a heel — The fitting is Thursday. The real shoes are on back-order. You have a pair that’s close.
- “Oh, that never happens” — A deposit today for a special order. You ask what happens if it’s late. You get a smile.
- Worn once — Four months out, no dress, and a listing for the exact gown. Worn once. One size up.
- Who bustles it? — The ceremony is done, the photos are done, and the train is three feet of fabric that wants to dance.
- The stain you can’t see — Champagne, sugar, a long night. Six months later, how much harder is that stain to get out? Slide.
- Everyone in the same green — Five months out. You want your people in one colour. Have you told them to order?
Every Dress IQ question is pre-written: Belle asks, you answer, she tells you the truth about the answer you picked, and the careful version waits on Boards. Your ladder here is your own; a subject becomes its own IQ at 3 questions.