Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.
Though the highlights of Sunday night’s Golden Globes included Donald Glover’s velvet “tobacco”-hued Gucci suit and the dainty “Fuck Paul Ryan” button that Lola Kirke pinned to her pretty princess dress, the major headline coming out of the awards show can be summarized thusly: Meryl Streep used her time onstage to speak out against the bullying behavior of “the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country,” and then Donald Trump called her “over-rated” and a “Hillary flunky.”
In a subsequent interview with the New York Times, Trump touched on the Streep affair and, regarding the presence of Hollywood players at his inauguration on January 20th, delivered this tidbit:
“We are going to have an unbelievable, perhaps record-setting turnout for the inauguration, and there will be plenty of movie and entertainment stars,” Mr. Trump said. “All the dress shops are sold out in Washington. It’s hard to find a great dress for this inauguration.”
What have actually been difficult to procure are performers willing to take the stage at Trump’s inauguration. Surely there can’t be a dress shortage, too!
An employee at the Neiman Marcus at the Mazza Gallerie told Racked, when asked whether it had evening gowns available, “Absolutely. A lot of them!” A staff member at Saks Fifth Avenue at Mazza Gallerie informed us that it does indeed have evening collections in stock at the moment. An employee at Gucci City Center said that clients can shop its ready-to-wear by appointment, and that offering “absolutely” includes evening dresses. A local Lord & Taylor has “a lot of eveningwear dresses,” according to an employee, and they’re 15 percent off with a Lord & Taylor Card! Betsy Fisher is “definitely not sold out,” in the words of one employee reached Monday morning. BCBG Georgetown has a “pretty good selection.” Nordstrom in Arlington, Virginia does indeed have black tie dresses in store right now, according to an employee. A stylist at Rent the Runway’s DC store wrote in an email, “At this moment we actually have over 180 floor length gowns in stock in our showroom in all different sizes, colors and formality!”
Finally, staffers for Hu’s Wear and Carolina Herrera in City Center had “no comment.”
So there you have it. You can buy a black tie dress in DC. Case closed.
This post has been updated to include comment from Rent the Runway.