Teen Consumers Fuel Thriving Prom Industry

April 5 -- For her upcoming prom, 17-year-old Atlanta junior Nicolle Kuritsky plans to spend $200 on a dress and $70 to get her hair done, and is still buying makeup and accessories.

Her date will dole out up to $150 for a rental tux, at least $100 on a limousine (provided they share it with at least two more couples), as much as $50 for a corsage and $100 to $150 on the prom tickets.

That means between them, they expect to spend more than $800 on their one-night blowout. And that's considered reasonable.

"I know of one family that spent $20,000 on prom night," says fashion analyst Sherry Maysonave of Austin, Texas. "It's like the cost of a wedding. It's really gotten out of hand."

It's no wonder that the price tag can get so high — the purveyors of prom products have crafted a $2.75 billion market from a wide variety of dresses, accessories, flowers, beauty products, and other prom-related "necessities."

Check out what some teens are wearing for Prom 2002.

And businesses are chasing an even larger purse. Teenage girls — arguably the most desirable of prom consumers — are big spenders. A 2001 Rand Youth Poll found 13- to 19-year-old females splurge in the neighborhood of $64 billion a year, $31 billion of it on beauty and fashion.

"Kids now have a lot of discretionary income from working after school or allowances," says Seventeen magazine publisher Ellen Abramowitz. "The teen market has largely been exempt from the recession."

The Search for Evening Wear — And Beyond

With so much money at stake, what are prom marketers offering young, powerful consumers? An opportunity to spend like adults, an experience experts agree most adolescents take seriously.

Teens, especially girls, start planning early for the prom, says Abramowitz. And what seems to drive their choices and expenditures is a need to belong and be accepted by their peer group, adds Maysonave.

The desire to fit in is not lost upon the industry, members of which happily provided online resources allowing teens to e-mail dress images to friends, Abramowitz says.