A quinceañera story
When a girl’s family couldn’t afford the grand fiesta, a dressmaker stepped in, not only with a custom gown but the whole shebang
“If the girl comes and takes that dress, we don’t make it anymore. The dress … is unique.” Tomas Benitez
It starts with a pen and paper. Thirty yards of pink tulle. An elite dressmaker. And a 14-year-old girl with a vision. “Más esponjada.” She wants a puffier skirt. And with the flick of a pen, there it is. “¿Qué más?” Leaning forward, Tomas Benitez picks up a highlighter, and it swishes softly against the page as he adds color in quick strokes of blush. In pen, he pecks at the paper, adding sparkle and glitter and glam.
Across the table, Lizbeth Gutierrez sits in rapt silence, watching her dreams come to life. “Bonita,” she whispers. She wasn’t sure this would ever happen. Ever since she found out what a quinceañera was, Lizbeth knew she wanted one. But her mother never had one, and her aunt didn’t either. There was no money for the extravagant celebration marking a girl’s 15th birthday as an entry into womanhood — and there still isn’t.
But now, a shy smile peeks out as she watches Benitez do what he does best: make something from nothing.
Her quinceañera dreams are coming true.
Long before he was one of Houston’s top dressmakers, Benitez was a little boy in a small town with no money.
His mother sold fruit in the streets of Mexico, but it was hardly enough to support him and his seven brothers and sisters. So they moved to a bigger city in Michoacán, a coastal state in the nation’s southwest.
Instead of going to school regularly, Benitez stayed home and worked, to help the family. His first job was cleaning windshields at gas stations. But he had his own dream: Whenever they went to the market, his mother recalled, Benitez would spend any money he had on scraps of fabric.
But piecing together scraps wouldn’t be enough to get him where he wanted to go.
“I decided in order to be somebody, I had to go to school,” Benitez said. So, as a teenager, he started taking classes at night and working during the day.
By that time, Benitez had already befriended the seamstress on his street. He could draw, and he wanted to look cool in clubs. So he came to her with his designs, and she made him clothes.
“One day she just told me, ‘Hey, Tomas, what if you draw some dresses?’ ” he said. “She made them and put them up front, and everybody was asking about them. And then she told me, ‘You know what, you should go to school for this.’ ”
But before he could study fashion, he needed to finish high school. On his first day of class, the teacher went around the room and asked everyone what they wanted to do once they graduated. “One girl said she wanted to make clothes for the rich people in town,” he said. But Benitez was already thinking bigger than that.
“I told her, ‘Someday, I’m going to be doing fashion shows in the USA.’ ”
Eventually, he made it into a fashion-design school and set up a small shop in Mexico selling his creations. But an American degree, he thought, would make his work more valuable back home. So he followed his sister to the U.S. to attend community college.
Fourteen years later, those dreams have blossomed into a glamorous business quietly nestled in a Gulfton-area strip center. From the outside, the building doesn’t look like much, but inside it’s a lush forest of bright dresses, a colorful reminder of his self-made success.
Benitez remembers what it was like being tantalized by fancy clothes — with no money to get them. So every few months, he offers a drawing through his Facebook page to give away one free dress.
Last year, Lizbeth signed up — but she didn’t win. Instead, her family told her, they’d honor her 15th birthdaywith a quiet dinner at home.
Sure, she’d have an enjoyable night. But there’d be no party. No dress. No dream come true. Her mother thought Lizbeth deserved more. She messaged Benitez directly, explaining that her daughter was a good girl. That she worked hard in school, spent time with her family and didn’t get in trouble. She’d always dreamed of an exquisite dress and a fancy princess-themed bash — but her family just didn’t have the money.
Benitez understood and was moved to help. But instead of giving away a free dress, he offered an entire free party. From his years in the business, he knew everyone he’d need to make this celebration happen for Lizbeth — venue owners, DJs, cake-makers.
“It’s kind of like I’m returning something to the community,” Benitez said.
The first time they meet, she is blushing and shy. He’s all smiles, garrulous as he sets aside a backlog of other May orders.
With seven months until Lizbeth’s big day, there’s plenty to do.
But first, she must tell Benitez what she wants.
Pink, she says. Blush, in particular. Sleeveless, a puffy skirt. With some lace and crystals.
She also wants one of Benitez’s hidden phone pockets in the skirt, a feature popular with today’s quinceañera celebrants.
“It’s kind of like I’m returning something to the community.” Tomas Benitez