LOGAN SQUARE — The year is 2001, and Ashley Dickson is preparing for the exciting high-school night event that many teens eagerly await: prom night.
That night’s special outfit is a copper-colored, spaghetti-strap dress with an empire waist and golden and brown embroidery that makes Dickson feel “like a model.” Dickson wears the dress, most likely inspired by the 1997 classic film “Titanic,” on an unforgettable night with four of her friends and their boyfriends.
“It was a pretty typical prom for the early 2000s …,” Dickson said, laughing, on Monday. “Limo, tons of fun, went out to dinner and danced like crazy. It was a great night.”
As for the dress, “Lord only knows what happened to it.” Or so Dickson thought until about a week and a half ago.
Dickson was scrolling through Instagram in her Arizona home when she clicked on a reel from Logan Square vintage shop Lost Girls Vintage.
In the video, Lost Girls Vintage co-owner Sarah Azzouzi opens a mystery box of vintage garments and sorts through them.
“What caught my eye is it said vintage ’90s and 2000s clothing, and I was making jokes with my husband, [saying], ‘Oh my gosh, we’re vintage,’” Dickson said.
At one point in the video, Azzouzi holds a copper dress.
“I saw the copper dress pop out, and I paused the video, and I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s my freaking prom dress,’” Dickson said.
Dickson ran to her closet and searched for her old prom pictures, though it took several days. Once she found them, she messaged the Chicago-based shop asking to buy the dress for her daughter.
When Azzouzi opened the message, she found a screenshot of the video and a picture of teenage Dickson wearing the same vintage copper dress.
“The guy had to be cut out of the photo,” Dickson joked when asked why the picture was incomplete. “I was cute. I had braces, but I still looked cute.”
After getting the vintage dress ready for its new — or rediscovered — owner, Azzouzi shipped it last week. Twenty-three years and 1,700 miles later, Dickson reunited with the dress Saturday.
Thanks to the algorithm — or what Dickson calls “divine timing” — Dickson’s daughter will get to make her prom memories in her mother’s beloved dress.
“I’m blown away,” Dickson said.
Though it is almost impossible to know if it’s the exact same dress, Dickson’s 14-year-old daughter Lizzie, who was a little hesitant at first, has been convinced to wear it.
“She fell in love with it as soon as she put it on,” Dickson said.
Her favorite part: The front slit, which creates a cape-like effect as she walks.
For Azzouzi and Kyla Embrey, who own Lost Girls Vintage together, this experience has been a one-of-a-kind reminder of what makes their jobs special.
“The funniest thing about this is Ashley wasn’t even following us; she found us through the Explore page on Instagram,” Azzouzi said.
Azzouzi and Embrey are big admirers of bold and unique fashion, but they are even bigger fans of the history each piece of clothing can tell.
“With this piece in particular, I’m really, really happy that it gets to live on with someone who has a direct connection to it,” Azzouzi said. “I was genuinely tearing up when I heard it.”
Finding “the best pieces of each era” and bringing them to customers is a long process that starts by sourcing vintage clothes from suppliers or individuals and getting them to Chicago, Azzouzi said. The dress was part of an order of 90s dresses the Logan Square shop purchased from a rag house in LA. Rag houses are wholesale shops that collect secondhand and vintage clothes and usually only sell to customers with a business license, Azzouzi said.
Vintage garments are washed, steamed and repaired as needed, a process that comes with its own set of challenges, like finding matching buttons or fabric to restore them. Then, the owners and staff measure the clothes, research their history, price them accordingly and list them, Azzouzi said.
Throughout the years, the shop has expanded and its online presence as well is its audience has grown. In its Logan Square and recently opened Andersonville branch, Lost Girls Vintage attracts a wide range of people who want “unique pieces,” including moms and daughters who shop together for fun vintage clothing, Azzouzi said.
For Dickson, that work does not go unnoticed — and she now follows the Logan Square shop. Though she will likely not make the trip to Chicago, she will continue to shop their “cool” online collection of clothing and home goods.
In the meantime, Dickson’s vintage prom dress will hang in her closet for four years until Lizzie can wear it on her prom night. Every time she sees it, she smiles.
“We’re reconnecting people with pieces of their history and reselling pieces of other people’s history,” Azzouzi said.
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