Want a 'Slate Blue' Dress? Yeah, They've Got That

By Jessica Carrier

Rancho Santa Margarita native Jeremy Penrod and his wife, Sierra, are using their negative experience shopping for bridesmaids dresses as a springboard to rethink the way people find dresses online. 

Their website, TheDressSpot.com, which launched in March, enables women to pinpoint exactly what they’re looking for in a dress.

When the couple were preparing for their own wedding, Sierra envisioned her bridesmaids wearing peach and slate blue dresses. But after a rigorous search proved futile, she was forced to change the color scheme of her wedding.

Although Jeremy admits he’s still not sure what "slate blue" looks like, he did think the process of looking for dresses was needlessly difficult. 

“It was frustrating to know what you want, scour the whole Internet looking for it, and still not be able to find it,” he said. “Surely, with all the people that make dresses in the world, someone must have a dress in that color. So, we thought, ‘Why not take all the dresses and sort them by hue?'”   

That’s when Jeremy, a freelance web designer working on his master’s in computer science and information systems at Brigham Young University, had the idea for the website.

“We wanted it to be better than your typical retail search,” he said. “We wanted every search result to actually be right. If you search for a red dress on most sites, you’ll get black and purple dresses on the second row.”

Not so with TheDressSpot.com.

From color and skirt type to sleeve length and price range, the website lets women personalize their search so they can choose from a variety of dresses that fit only within the parameters of what their looking for.

But the couple has found the site attracts more than just brides or women in bridal parties.

“We made the site to be specific, but it’s almost a fault," Jeremy said. "We’re finding that some women who aren’t brides or bridesmaids visit the site just knowing what they want."

So the couple is beginning work to expand the search so that when you click to see light blue dresses, it displays dresses in more than just one specific shade of light blue.  

With around 20,000 dresses currently in stock, and another 10,000 expected in the immediate future, there’s plenty to pick from. The website has aligned with a myriad of vendors including Asos, The Limited, Forever 21, Express, Nordstrom, Dillards, Macy’s, Loehmans and Modcloth.

“In the last couple of weeks we’ve doubled the inventory,” Jeremy said. “We’ve got a bunch more [retailers] lined up that have approved access to their inventory.”  

Site features include being able to share dresses with fellow bridesmaids or friends, and will soon include the ability to search for certain materials, such as lace.  

The couple hopes to publicize the site via the blogosphere.  

“The fashion blogs and the wedding blogs, we’ll certainly be working with them closely,” Jeremy said. “We can also partner with wedding planners, so that they know this is a time saver for their bride.”