Hours before the very first Abby’s Closet dress giveaway is set to start, Abby Wilson stands at the doors of a hotel lobby in downtown Portland, Oregon. She says, “It was a moment of, like, if you build it, will they come?”
Behind her, racks stagger under the weight of over 1,000 dresses mashed together, a cacophony of color and sparkles. Wilson waits, not knowing if anyone will actually show up. She’s whisked off to complete another task, and upon returning to the front door hours later, she’s relieved to see a group of high schoolers gathering outside.
Over the next few hours, 300 high schoolers sifted through the racks to select free prom dresses. “We call it the twirl effect now, but what we saw that year was that this is way more than a prom dress,” says Wilson, “That moment when someone looks in the mirror and maybe they’ve never worn a dress before and they’re just standing up taller. They feel confident.”
When Wilson graduated from West Linn High School in 2003, running a large-scale nonprofit event was the last thing on her mind. On her way to the University of Oregon, she had already packed up most of her childhood bedroom, with the exception of a few odd items. One such artifact from her time in high school stood out: the floofy, pink dress she wore at her junior prom. Wilson says, “My mom set it all in motion by asking, ‘Well, what’re you going to do with your prom dress?’”
Wilson knew without a doubt that she wanted to pass it along to another high school student. “I wanted to give another high school student that experience of feeling beautiful in a dress,” she says. But after asking around and scouring Google, Wilson and her mom couldn’t find a way to donate the dress to a high schooler. Regardless, the two were determined to make this idea work, so they decided they would do it themselves.
Wilson says, “We thought we would do this one year and just give away my dress, give away my friends’ dresses and move on. And now we’ve been doing this for almost 20 years.”
What started as a small giveaway in 2005 has grown into a massive event that draws high school students from all across Portland. Initially, the swap was only meant to provide dresses for students who couldn’t afford them, but that’s no longer the case. Wilson reflects on the changes in the philosophy of the nonprofit: “It’s really evolved into, like, just an event and something inclusive that anyone can go to. It doesn’t matter if you need financial aid or not.”
The event takes place just one weekend a year at the Oregon Convention Center. “It’s just like a store, but better,” says Wilson, “It’s free and there’s more selection than anywhere else.” With music blaring over loudspeakers and more than 7,000 dresses of all sorts of styles and sizes, the atmosphere at the event is rife with excitement.
“The event is centered around community,” she says, “Sometimes I hear girls chatting in the fitting room and I assume they came together. And they’re like, ‘No, we just met in line,’ and here they are, like, zipping each other up.”
Thousands of people come every year to select a prom dress. The selection is vast and varied, and with volunteers constantly moving about, it would be difficult not to find a dress that truly fit. People who attend also get to select an accessory, which Wilson says “really ties the outfits together and allows for more customization.” She adds, “If I had something like Abby’s Closet growing up, I would have never chosen that floofy pink prom dress.”
After just two days, it’s over. The event closes Sunday evening, and dresses left unclaimed are packed up and put into storage for the next year. Wilson reflects on the impact of the event, saying, “Getting a free dress is awesome, and there’s so much that happens there, but we also wanted to make sure that students that were coming into our events were inspired to think about their future.”
As Abby’s Closet grew, Wilson, her mother and their board of directors began to consider the purpose of Abby’s Closet beyond prom dresses. Wilson remembers it as the moment when they began to think about bigger questions: “What are our values? What is our mission? What are we here to do?”
In 2011, after much deliberation, the Dreams Scholarship was born. Wilson says, “It was super simple in the beginning, we just asked applicants to tell us who they were and who they were gonna be. Like, ‘What are your dreams?’” Since, the nonprofit has founded three new additional scholarships — giving away nearly $10,000 in scholarships every year.
The impact of Abby’s Closet continues to grow. In 2020, the organization started a program called “Sharing the Love.” Through the program, schools far from Portland can have volunteers bring dresses to their communities to organize their own giveaway. Wilson says, “Usually it’s just in their gym or local church, but it means kids are getting dresses, and that’s what’s important.”
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the program was integral to the continuation of Abby’s Closet. Wilson says, “It was a way that we were still able to make sure that people got dresses, whether they went to prom or they sat on their couch in a beautiful dress.”
As for future plans, Wilson hopes Abby’s Closet will continue to grow. “One of our biggest things is just wanting to expand our scholarship program and also making opportunities for more schools to receive donations through the ‘Sharing the Love’ program.”
This year’s Abby’s Closet event will be held on March 18 and 19 at the Oregon Convention Center. Registration is free, but required prior to arrival. Wilson says, “We have vintage to brand new, short to long, sizes zero- 20+. Our selection is better than most department stores. Come find something that will make you feel like you.”
