Selling My Prom (Art?) Dresses

[DuctTapeRockStar]

Okay! So I'm 18. I'm going to college in the fall and working a full-time, minimum wage job just isn't going to cover what scholarships and loans isn't (and my parents aren't pitching in). So my last ditch effort to get money is to sell my three one-of-a-kind prom dresses, in hopes they will help me out some.
I have made (okay, the first two with the help of my Mother and an Aunt) a prom dress out of Doritos bags, one out of Pop tabs and one out of Cardboard. So you might have heard of me on here. Also, just Google "Doritos Prom Dress", "Pop Tab Prom Dress", "Cardboard Prom Dress" or "Maura Pozek" and there's news stories and blog posts and everything else (Mainly about the Cardboard one...That got me all the attention in the world including a Huffington Post article, an NPR interview and a ton of radio interviews around the country).
So...Broke, soon-to-be-college-student Maura needs money, and everyone has told me I could make bank if I ever sold my dresses. Some may remember last year when Ripley's Believe It Or Not wanted to buy two of my dresses, but they offered too little ($450 for both, and they wouldn't budge), so I turned them down, and they haven't knocked on my door since.
I don't know what forum would be the best of which to sell my dresses? (Etsy or Ebay seem the most practical?) How would I price my dresses? All those other questions...
All three of my dresses have been worn exactly twice, once for Prom night, and once for an interview. I didn't sweat or anything in them, they didn't get ripped or stained (actually the Pop Tab one has some bbq sauce on a spot, but won't that come out?)...Basically they're in great condition!


Thanks in advance for any help! And here are pictures of each dress.

Cardboard (Senior Year)


Pop Tabs (Junior Year)


Doritos Bags (Sophomore Year)



Again, THANK YOU!!!

[AlphaBrett]

Ebay takes a good portion of your money and if you put a buy it now price they take even more! Etsy is only 25 cents to list, and they take barely anything. I would go with etsy and tweet about it and the likes to get it noticed (not that they won't get it on their own). Ebay and amazon are going to take a ton of your profit, especially if the items are above a hundred.

[CraftyChef]

For the pricing you'll have to compare these to other art dresses out there. On etsy, a mere 3 dresses, no matter how cool, will sit there forever without an updated round of press or promotion. Let's face it, fame is fleeting, and you've had yours already. You'll need another round to get those sold. You could send out a press release to all the folks who promoted you in the first place and see if anything pops.

[jungrrl]

Yea I was thinking that, too. No matter where you sell, try to get those news outlets who wrote/spoke about you before to do it again!

[lvb56003]

Have you sold any of your dresses yet?  If not is it possible to take a close pic of the pop tab?

[jungrrl]

lvb, you can see more details of the dress here: www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=378509.0

[kchynoweth]

I've got some, possibly controversial, advice. Don't go to college. You seem like a really creative and smart person and your time would be better spent cultivating your talent to make it profitable. Take seamstress clinics with designers, try to intern at a fadhion house, or work full time to save money and open your own business. I can't tell you how many people I know -smart people who did great in college - who have jobs they could have done without a degree. Most of those I know with jobs related to their field owe so much debt that they would been better off having gotten a job straight out of college and moved up the ladder that way. My husband an I have multiple degrees and he eventually had to go back and get another degree to finally land a job. We are 32. We both graduated with honors and had good jobs until the economy tanked. Save your time and money. Get a library card, travel through Europe taking odd jobs at hotels as you go (have friends who did that!) you'll learn much more than you will in the modern crap hole we call the university system.