Couture for a cure

Dal student Erica Sweett a formal dress sale with proceeds to go to the Canadian Cancer Society.

Erica Sweett is busy. No, check that. Everyone is busy. Erica Sweett is super busy. She’s is in her fourth year of a degree in IDS and political science, singing and acting in an upcoming Dalhousie Theatre Society show and volunteering at the Sunday Supper program at St. Andrew’s Church. She’s also a member of Alpha Gamma Delta women’s fraternity, where she acts as the organization’s philanthropy coordinator.

“I’m obsessed with volunteering,” Ms. Sweett says. She joined Alpha Gamma Delta a year and a half ago, hoping it would provide her with philanthropic opportunities as well as new connections, and so far she has not been disappointed. Nor has she had much free time. An “incredibly successful” fraternity clothing swap earlier this year inspired her current project, which is just days from fruition: Alpha Gamma Delta’s public formal dress sale, profiting the Canadian Cancer Society.

“Everyone has old dresses, everyone has stuff that they never wear,” Ms. Sweett says. “It seemed like a good idea.” Bargain hunters are invited to visit the dress sale this Saturday from 12 noon to 6 p.m. in the Haliburton room in the University of King's College A&A Building. The dresses will sell for roughly $10 to $50—a steal, considering that prom dresses can cost hundreds.

Sequins

Since Dal’s winter holiday, when the Alpha Gam dress sale was given the go-ahead, Ms. Sweett has spent her spare time stalking rogue evening gowns. She’s successfully collected almost 50 dresses from sorority sisters and charitable strangers, including several cocktail numbers which were once her own.

“I think it was really hard for a lot of girls to give away their prom dresses,” she says. “I’m really proud of them.” Her apartment is stocked with plastic bags full of unsorted gowns. Ms. Sweett hasn’t quite finished examining all of the dresses, but says her favourite so far was a liberally sequined pink cocktail number, as well as a garment she will only describe mysteriously as “really eighties” (she plans to purchase it herself if nobody else snags it). She’s also arranging for unsold dresses to be donated to a high school, where they can benefit students on tighter budgets. That way, both sold and unsold dresses will help someone: “it’s a win-win situation.”

Donate dresses

The dress sale represents a planned effort on the part of the women of Alpha Gamma Delta to engage with their community; the fraternity will also send a team to participate in the Relay for Life later this spring. “People stereotype sororities,” says Ms. Sweett. “(But)I don’t feel like we live up to any of those stereotypes.”

If you have any last-minute dresses to donate, Erica Sweett can be reached at ericanova@hotmail.com. On the other hand, if you’re more the shopping type, come down to the A&A Building, University of King's College, on Saturday afternoon. Good karma doesn’t often come accompanied by bargain fashion.

Rebecca Schneidereit is a fourth-year English, Theatre and Film Studies student and a member of Alpha Gamma Delta. She has written for Dal News, the Gazette, Fathom, the Kings Frynje, and Disney’s Propaganda Games.