Joy’s Uptown Style

I had a great experience at Joy’s last month while shopping for a dress for my daughter’s wedding. She had a terrific selection and my biggest problem was making up my mind which one to choose. I ended up with a lovely sky-​blue crêpe tank dress with flounced, rhinestone-​adorned tiers.
When I walked in and saw how much formalwear she had in there, my first thought was, «Oh, no, there’s going to be nothing but conservative, matronly, stiff, MOB dresses.» That was clearly not the case. When I told Joy what I was looking for (formal but fun and sort of sassy) she immediately pulled out a fantastic selection of dresses and I had the best time trying them on. She even brought out shoes so I could get the full effect. It turned out to be a really fun experience and Joy was terrific.
In response to another reviewer who felt the level of service was determined by how the shoppers are dressed — I was in a T-​shirt and capris when I went in, and I got terrific service from Joy herself, so thumbs up from me on that score, for sure.
Thanks to Joy, I’m going to feel confident and fantastic at my daughter’s wedding. If you need special-​occasion wear, I highly recommend this shop.

The lady who runs this shop seems to only like people who look like they have money. I brought a friend here who dresses like she has money but has none and the sales clerk fell all over herself waiting on her. On the other hand I was dressed in jeans and a T-​shirt and have LOTS of money and was totally ignored by the sales clerk. Of course my friend didn’t buy a thing and we had a great laugh at the very ignorant sales clerk. Very overpriced outdated polyester cruise crap that anyone with taste wouldn’t wear anyway.

I agree with the other reviewer – Joy has lovely clothes in her store, but I was quite disappointed that after my paid-​for dress arrived (it had to be ordered in a bigger size), she was not helpful in getting the alterations done as we’d discussed before ordering the dress (it had to be shortened). I was partly to blame for waiting too long to dress-​shop – I was leaving in a week for a wedding abroad – but when I arrived for the fitting as agreed on the phone, on time, the alterations person who I was told would be there had left, and Joy seemed uninterested in helping get the alterations taken care of over the remaining three days, during which I had no time to make different arrangements myself. So I felt the post-​sale customer service was just not there. I ended up cutting and sewing at 2:00 a.m. the night before my trip, and had to have further alterations done abroad before the wedding. Lovely dresses, yes, and nice helpful pre-​sale attention, but do not count on clear communications and alterations help after the sale.

I chanced into this shop in a search for a «mother of the bride» dress and could not have been more pleased. Joy was there, she is knowledgable, kind, totally unpretentious and incredibly helpful. There is a wide variety of styles, colors, sizes of casual to formal clothing. Most of it is fairly conservative but that was fine, too. Amazingly, some of the dressy dresses can be ordered and gotten in only a week or so in the color of your choice — and in sizes up to … 20? Yes — she has a vast array of color swatches from which to choose. This shop and its owner are fantastic, a real treasure for Portland.