Virtual prom dress try-on: find your prom look before you order

Prom season is in spring, and the best dresses sell out fast. Most shoppers buy online now, which means guessing how a sequinned bodice or a thigh-high slit will look on them. A virtual try-on takes the guesswork out of style: you see the dress on your own body and face, in your own skin tone, before ordering. Use it to narrow ten tabs down to two, then order those or try them in store.

Use a full-length photo of yourself taken from the front, not from above. For the dress, model photos from the shop are ideal; mannequin shots and clear flat-lays work too. Skip images where the dress is partly cut off, covered by long hair or shown in a collage of several colours – pick one colourway per try-on. If you want to see both a front slit and a back detail, run two separate previews.

There’s no single prom look anymore. Try a satin corset gown, a sequin mermaid dress, a tulle princess ball gown, a sleek one-shoulder column, a short beaded cocktail dress or a two-piece crop-top set. Colour matters as much as cut, so test the same style in two shades before deciding. Mermaid and column dresses suit people who want a sleek look, while ball gowns and A-lines give drama and movement. Many people end up loving a cut they’d have skipped on the hanger, so try at least one wildcard.