Avoiding Dreaded Inaugural Dress Dupes

Women lucky enough to get tickets for one of the inaugural balls on the night of Jan. 20 will have an online hand to help assure they avoid that ultimate social blunder: showing up in the same dress as someone else.

It's sure to be a concern of all those women dressed to the nines at the lavish affairs.

"If you're going to one of the bigger balls, the last thing you want to see if someone in your dress!" notes Manhattan boutique owner Liana Pai. "It's a huge fear for women."

On The Early Show Saturday Edition, co-anchor Erica Hill explained that, with so many people attending all the galas honoring the Obamas, there's serious risk of such a thing unfolding.

In fact, it happened with the 2006 Kennedy Center Honors: At the White House reception before the event, one dazzling red dress stood out, adorning not one, not two, but three different guests -- AND first lady Laura Bush!

But now, Hill points out, there's a Web site to help lower the odds.

DressRegistry.com enables women to register the dress they'll be wearing, and the ball or balls they'll be wearing it to, to try to avoid duplications.

As Hill put it, the site is "looking to be the inauguration's one stop fashion cop."

Just click on the ball you are attending, see what dresses are being worn, and voila, those awkward moments should be a thing of the past, Hill says.

"Some designers like to do the same color themes," Pai observed, "so you may see somebody in the same color, a different variation of the dress, so you'll just have to cross your fingers."