Glitz & Glamour: Operation Deploy Your Dress brings sparkle to Fort Hood
Story and photos by Brandy Cruz
Being a member of the military community no longer means just putting on a uniform or wondering what to wear to formal unit events.
Open since September, Operation Deploy Your Dress now makes glitz and glamour available to service members and their families.
“We open weekly and anyone with a valid military ID can get one dress free per year and one accessory,” said Christin James, shop manager of the Fort Hood boutique. “They don’t have any obligation to return it, so it’s theirs free and clear.”
ODYD is a nonprofit founded at Fort Bliss in 2015 as a dress swap. The Fort Hood Spouses’ Club was contacted about opening its own shop, making it the organization’s eighth location. With more than 1,000 dresses donated from around the world, the mission of ODYD is to help offset the high costs of formal events, especially for junior soldiers, though gowns are available to all ranks.
“I think it helps build camaraderie on base and it helps going to these functions more affordable and fun,” James said.
She said the shop is available to loan for free if battalions, companies or small groups want to come in to dress shop before a ball. It also helps new spouses figure out what types of dresses they should be looking when shopping for a military ball.
“It’s good for younger spouses who have never been to a ball and don’t really know what to wear and are also really nervous,” said Dana Key, president of the Fort Hood Spouses’ Club.
James said the boutique has dresses in a variety of sizes and styles for every body shape. She said some of the dresses are big and flowy, some are slinky, some are short and some even have trains.
Opening the shop was no simple task, as it took hundreds of volunteer hours, with James logging 280 hours alone. She received assistance from Fort Hood Spouses’ Club volunteers, as well as design and construction assistance from “Moving with the Military,” the Fort Hood-based home improvement show created, produced and hosted by local Army spouses Maria Reed and Chandee Ulch.
Reed heard about the project from Christina Hendrex, wife of Command Sgt. Maj. Daniel Hendrex, the former III Corps and Fort Hood senior enlisted advisor, and jumped at the chance to help.
Armed with nine construction volunteers, consisting of spouses and children from the Reed and Ulch families, the crew built the closets the gowns hang from, built four dressing rooms, painted and helped with the final touches. Reed said they worked more than 150 hours.
“We were thrilled with the results. Knowing that for years to come ladies from around the world will be able to walk into those doors and for a moment feel like a princess and be doted over is why we get involve with things like this,” Ulch said. “Everyone needs a moment when they can look into a mirror and love who they see. Yes, the place is beautiful, but the place only reflects how we, at ‘Moving with the Military,’ see every military spouse, child, and service member, as someone special.”
Reed said the “Moving with the Military” episode featuring the Fort Hood ODYD can be watched on YouTube, Facebook and Farm & Ranch TV. Check their Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/movingwiththemilitary, for updates and some behind-the-scenes photos of the ODYD build.
The Fort Hood ODYD is open Thursdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Appointments are required and can be made online. Visit the Fort Hood ODYD Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/FortHoodODYD, for the link. Dress donations can be dropped off at the ODYD box outside Heart of the Hood Gift Shop or at the Fort Hood ODYD, located to the right of the Clear Creek Commissary (behind the trees).
