Marla’s

Meh, I wish I could say we had a better experience here. Being with amazing friends was about the only thing that redeemed the shopping trip. We came here today for brides maids dresses. The dresses were nice enough; not great quality but also not expensive. The” sales associate”, and I’m using the term loosely here, seemed almost annoyed that customers had shown up to bother her. She kept walking off and we could never find her when we needed something or had a question and didn’t seem at all interested in selling a butt load of dresses. We did manage to find a dress style we all like which the store can order in a variety of colours and sizes. They will also do alterations for a very reasonable price. Unfortunately we were told that it takes 3 – 4 MONTHS (!!!) for ordered dresses to come in and if you don’t like what comes in… tough luck, its all prepaid. It should also be noted that the sizes run extremely small here. I had to go up 3 sizes from the dress I was wearing when I came in. This really isnt a terrible store if you’re just looking for something cheap and cheerful and are able to shop without help from staff.

This is one of THOSE stores, ladies. You know the ones. They’re full of mostly, very shiny dresses. They have big ugly red-​and-​white 50% OFF sale signs in the window, 100% of the time. They dresses all were probably made by the same three companies, and probably get ordered out of a very thick catalogue. Most of the dresses have seed pearls and glitter on them. Most of the dresses they have are size 12 – 18. A lot of the dresses come with the classic M-​O-​B Bolero Jacket. Which also has seed pears and glitter on it.
Whatever, it works, they were doing a ROARING business in said dresses.
But this one is different! In addition to all of the above, the buyer has actually managed to get a number of tasteful, gently adorned — or not adorned at all — simple gowns in pleasing fabrics. There are a few classic silhouettes, and some more modern shapes, and most of the dresses come in at least 4 – 5 different colours.
I went in to pretty much every ladies store in Square One today, looking for a gown to wear to a black tie new years eve wedding in six weeks. I kicked off the day by falling in love with this ridiculous cobalt blue cutout gown, that in addition to being $ 525, was tremendous, and machine washable jersey. It was also walking sex, and completely inappropriate — and a very poor cost-​per-​wear investment.
Everything else that I saw did nothing for me at all, for five-​hundred dollars, or fifteen. Everything is short. If you want more that one or two options per store, I guess you have to go to a GOWN STORE or whatever. I don’t know! My prom was 10 years ago!
After trying everywhere else, I decided to venture into one of «THESE» places. Marla’s was the third one I tried and they had most of the gowns at under $ 200, and the simpler ones were marked down usually to $ 150 or below. They were very friendly and helped me gather up all the youthful things they had in my size, and when we hit on a style that was good, they brought me all the colours they had in. I wound up with a very striking and simple, royal purple, one-​shoulder chiffon gown for less that $ 150 that I’m actually incredibly excited to wear.
Too bad they didn’t have it in cobalt. Then it would have been a 5 star review.