The 657 Quarry St address still floating around directory listings is the shop’s old one. That address belongs to Tower Mill, the redeveloped Barnard Mills complex built in 1874 and now leased out as commercial and self-storage space. Party Dress Express moved out in 2017 and has been at 847 Pleasant Street, out toward Flint Village, ever since. The phone number, (508) 677-1575, did not change. If a map app sends you to a five-story brick mill, you have the stale record.
Two people who started here as teenagers now own it
Sisters Jessica and Adrianna Cordeiro, both from Fall River, took over in July 2017 from Donna Holland, who opened the store in the mid-1980s as a career wear boutique. Both sisters had worked there since high school; Jessica started at 16. That is the actual continuity in this business — not a slogan, just the same two people who used to hang the stock now running the buying.
Since the move, the shop has leaned into bridal, and the appointment calendar reflects that: bridal and bridesmaids are booked in advance through the store’s online scheduler. Prom runs as its own operation, with its own Facebook page and its own racks, and does not require an appointment the way bridal does.
What is actually on the prom racks
Three prom labels are confirmed through the designers’ own retailer locators: Colette, Dave & Johnny, and Tiffany Designs. The store’s own catalog lists more, and it splits its prom stock into standard and extended sizing rather than treating plus size as an afterthought:
| Prom lines listed by the store | Clarisse, Colette for Mon Cheri, Morilee Prom, Studio 17, Tiffany Designs |
|---|---|
| Extended-size prom lines | Faviana Plus Sizes, Sydney’s Closet, Tease Prom, Tiffany Plus Size Prom |
| Quinceañera and damas | Vizcaya by Mori Lee, Valencia by Morilee, Fiesta by House of Wu, Damas de Vizcaya, Tiffany Damas |
Four separate extended-size prom labels is a real commitment, and it is the kind of thing worth knowing before you drive. The store also carries homecoming, Sweet 16, communion and pageant categories, so the racks are not stripped bare outside of March and April.
Who fills the fitting rooms
B.M.C. Durfee High School on Elsbree Street is the gravitational center here: roughly 2,400 to 2,600 students, one of the largest high schools in Massachusetts, with a senior class near 580. A store two miles away from a class that size does not need to advertise. Durfee’s rivalries with New Bedford and Somerset Berkley are a fair map of the wider trade area, and since Bishop Connolly closed at the end of the 2022-23 school year, the city has one fewer prom on the calendar than it used to.
Fall River has the densest concentration of Portuguese-American residents in the country, by one count around 46 percent of the city, and the store’s stock list — communion dresses, damas, quinceañera gowns, mother-of-the-bride — reads like a business that dresses whole families for events, not just seniors in May.
Before you go
- Closed Wednesdays. Sundays are appointment-only, and at least one listing shows Sunday hours suspended from June through December.
- Published hours differ between the store’s site and its third-party listings. Call first.
- Yelp lists an ADA-compliant main entrance, wheelchair access, and accessible parking near the door.
- The shop describes its stylists as non-commissioned.
- The store puts its showroom at 15,000 square feet and its inventory above 10,000 dresses. That is the store’s own figure, not an independent measurement.