Most prom shops sell one season. This one sells two. Alongside the prom, cocktail and mother-of-the-bride racks, Fancy Schmancy keeps standing categories for track wear and track hats — the summer meet at Saratoga Race Course, twenty-odd miles up the Northway, is close enough to Latham that a dress shop can build part of its year around it. If you come in for a prom gown in April and again in July for a hat, you are shopping the same store twice for two different reasons.
The shop sits at 641 New Loudon Road, which is Route 9 through Latham, in the Town of Colonie north of Albany. This is the commercial spine of the Capital Region’s northern suburbs: plazas, car dealers, and the crossroads where Route 9 meets Route 7 and the Northway feeds in. It is not a mall store and not a downtown storefront. It is a Route 9 address with its own parking, which is the practical difference for anyone driving in from the Capital Region’s outer towns with a carload of friends.
What the store says about itself
Fancy Schmancy opened in 2002, first in Guilderland, and the Better Business Bureau records the business start as November 2002 with Susanne Dura as owner. Dura, who told the Times Union she co-owns the business with her daughter Ashley, ran an earlier shop called Susanne’s Stitchery beginning in 1980. In November 2013 the store moved to the larger Latham space it occupies now. In that same 2016 Times Union profile, the store put the Latham floor at 6,000 square feet and its formalwear stock at more than 6,500 gowns and dresses, with prices in the range of $199 to $1,299. Those are the store’s own figures from nearly a decade ago; treat them as the scale of the place rather than today’s count.
The part of that account most worth knowing is the buying model: formalwear is sold off the rack. You try the dress, you buy that dress, you take it home. There is no six-week special order and no waiting to find out whether the gown that arrives is the gown you liked. For a junior whose prom is five weeks out, that is the whole question.
Brands confirmed here
- Alyce Paris — lists this store on its official retailer locator.
- Terani Couture — same.
Both are prom-and-evening houses, which lines up with a shop that also stocks shoes, jewelry, handbags, plus sizes, bridal and mother-of-the-bride under one roof. Assume the racks run wider than those two labels; the two above are what can be verified from the outside.
One rule to know before you drive over
During prom season the store requires anyone shopping for prom to be accompanied by an adult 21 or older. That is posted on its own prom page, and it means the trip is not one a group of sophomores can make on their own after school. Bring a parent, an aunt, an older sibling who qualifies.
Who is within range
Shaker High School is in Latham itself, a few minutes away. Colonie Central is just south. Cohoes and Watervliet are a short run east, Troy and Emma Willard across the river, Niskayuna and Guilderland west, and Shenendehowa in Clifton Park is one exit up the Northway. Saratoga Springs, Burnt Hills–Ballston Lake and the Albany city and parochial schools are all inside a half-hour of Route 9. That spread is the reason a Latham location works at all: nothing here is far from anything, and Route 9 is the road most of those towns already use.
Upstate prom season also runs late. Where Southern schools hold prom in late March and April, most Capital Region proms land in May and early June, which pushes serious shopping into February and March. The upside of an off-the-rack store is that a later start is survivable. The downside of any off-the-rack store is that the good dress in your size is gone once it is gone, so early March beats late April.
Hours and whether appointments are needed during peak weeks are worth confirming by phone at (518) 452-1269 before you make the drive.