Teen Refuses to Spend 'Over $700' on Store-Bought Prom Dress. So She Makes Her Own with $200 a Yard Fabric (Exclusive)
Teen Refuses to Spend 'Over $700' on Store-Bought Prom Dress. So She Makes Her Own with $200 a Yard Fabric (Exclusive)
Jordan GreeneMon, April 13, 2026 at 7:14 PM UTC
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Leah Bray in her handmade prom dressCredit: Courtesy Leah Bray -
Leah Bray spent over 200 hours designing and sewing her prom dress after struggling to find an affordable option
She found one fabric she thought was perfect before realizing it clocked in at $200 a yard
She reveals how she made the dress affordable while still utilizing the expensive fabric
When Leah Bray started shopping for prom dresses, she quickly ran into a problem.
“Prom dresses were just so unbelievably expensive,” the 18-year-old from Bucks County, Pa., tells PEOPLE exclusively. “I couldn’t fathom spending (in some cases) over $700 on a dress that I would only wear once.”
But the price wasn’t the only issue.
“Not to mention, I couldn’t find anything that felt like ‘me,’ ” she says.
So instead of settling, Bray decided to do something far more ambitious: she would make her own. For Bray, sewing wasn’t new — it was something that had been part of her life for years.
“My Nagymama (grandmother in Hungarian) has and always will be my biggest inspiration,” she says, explaining that her grandmother built a life as a seamstress after immigrating to the United States at 18. “As a child, I was always around her and admired everything that she did.”
With both her grandmother and her mom sewing, Bray began picking it up herself, eventually realizing in a ninth-grade class that she could make her own clothes.
“After that, I became obsessed with the idea of making dresses,” she says. “I spent every free minute glued to either a sewing article, magazine or YouTube video, trying to teach myself how to become a dressmaker.”
By the time prom approached, Bray had already made dresses for multiple school dances — but taking on a prom gown still felt like a leap.
“I was absolutely petrified to take on the challenge of making such a big (and important) dress,” she admits. “But I’ve always loved a challenge, and while I was scared, I dove in headfirst.”
Leah Bray in her prom dressCredit: Courtesy Leah Bray
Her design started months earlier during a trip to New York City, when she visited Mood Fabrics and found a material she instantly loved.
“As soon as I locked eyes with that bolt of fabric, I knew it needed to become my prom dress,” she recalls. “The fabric was so uniquely me, and it was perfect!”
But there was another obstacle: the price tag.
“Yikes! $200 a yard,” she says. “I knew I couldn’t afford to make my dress out of that.”
Instead of giving up, Bray got creative.
“I came up with the idea to use the fabric to make giant floral patches, instead of making the entire gown out of it,” she explains. “That way, I could get away with using just a yard.”
Ultimately, Bray estimates she spent less than $300 on the dress altogether, after finding a different fabric to use for the dress's base that was much more cost-effective.
“I think the dress probably cost around $250 to $300,” she says. “My floral fabric was $200, the yellow fabric was around $30, and the white lining was about $20 — plus smaller details like a zipper, thread and beads.”
“The one thing that — to me — is truly amazing about having limits, is that it causes you to think creatively,” she adds. “Your brain needs to come up with solutions to problems that it didn’t expect to run into.”
From there, the process became a months-long labor of love. After sketching her design, Bray created her own pattern and made a mockup out of an old bedsheet. Then came the most time-consuming part: hand-beading and sewing each floral detail.
“I likely spent over 60 hours alone beading just the flowers,” she says, noting that she then hand-sewed each patch onto the dress.
In total, the project took more than 200 hours.
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“If I was at home with nothing else to do, there was a 99% chance that you would have been able to find me in my room watching Gossip Girl and hand beading,” she says.
At one point, the intense workload even led to a setback.
“I worked myself just a little too hard and gave myself carpal tunnel,” she says, adding that it taught her “just how important it is to take a break.”
Through the process, Bray leaned on a strong support system — including a mentor she calls her “adopted grandmother.”
“Ann always finds a way to calm me down and perfectly redirect me to finding the next steps that I need to take,” she says. “Sometimes the imperfections distract us from the true beauty we are creating.”
Leah Bray making her prom dressCredit: Courtesy Leah Bray
Despite the challenges, seeing the final dress come together made it all worth it.
“After devoting over 200 hours to something, and then seeing the final result, [it's] a feeling like no other,” she says. “Getting to step back and say ‘I did that’ makes you feel something truly special.”
For Bray, the dress represents more than just what she’ll wear to prom.
“It is a capsule of all of my time and moments working on it," she says.
“When I look at the beaded embroidery, I am transported back to my lunch table… talking to my friends,” she adds. “Every single piece of my dress has a moment frozen in time to accompany it.”
About a year ago, Bray made another decision that would change everything: she started sharing her work online.
“A little over a year ago, my introverted self had an epiphany,” she says. “The girl who was too nervous to talk to new people now wanted to post videos on social media for the world to see.”
“I had ONE goal in the back of my mind, to inspire,” she continues. “And that goal took over every ounce of fear in my body and allowed me to do what I never thought I would do: post publicly on social media about my sewing.”
Since then, she’s consistently shared her work on TikTok and Instagram — and her prom dress videos quickly took off, reaching thousands and resonating widely online.
“I have been able to inspire thousands of people by simply just sharing what I love to do,” she says. “I am so unbelievably overwhelmed by the continued love and support that the internet has shown me.”
“If you told me a year ago that this is what would become of my ‘little hobby,’ I would have told you that you were crazy,” she adds. “But… I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.”
Now, as she prepares for prom, Bray is most excited for one final milestone with the people closest to her — and to finally wear what she created.
“I’m so excited to get to spend one last special moment with my favorite people before I head off to college,” she says.
And seeing the dress in its final setting will make it even more meaningful.
“The way that the sun hits my design outside makes it a hundred times more beautiful,” she says. “I can’t wait to see it.”
And when she does, she knows exactly what she’ll be wearing — something entirely her own.
“I loved getting to wear something that I knew no one else would have,” she says. “Because I had designed it.”
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
