Gunne Sax collectors don't know what they want
Thoughts on the revival collection for ModCloth, plus spending a weekend in Dirty Dancing's "Summer of 1963"
Jessica McClintock’s Gunne Sax is such an iconic and beloved brand that I’d assume every dress-wearing person reading this, no matter their age, knows exactly what it is. The designs represented the 1970’s dream ideal of casual-romantic peasant gowns: Billowing sheer sleeves, lace-up bodices in twee calico prints, sweeping cotton skirts with ruffles along the hem.
The brand strung its signature brand of femininity through the trends of the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s, switching cotton to polyester taffeta and replacing butterfly sleeves with strapless corset bodices. But those original 1970s dresses have a massive, devoted cult following today, with rare styles on eBay running into four-digit final bids.
The 60s-inspired horror film The Love Witch dressed its eponymous, love-obsessed antiheroine in them, while Lana Del Rey wore shortened versions on her early tours. Gunne Sax dresses are romantic but earthy, making the wearer feel like a Medieval princess, a maiden frolicking with fairies, a kitchen witch in her cottage, or even a tradwife.
In the 70s and 80s, families who couldn’t afford the boutique-priced dresses used licensed Simplicity sewing patterns to make them at home for weddings and proms. I’ve made a few of my own from those original patterns, but still need to add on a few inches to the biggest size to fit. The brand was always sized quite small: The original Gunne Sax was a juniors line, typically ending at a vintage size 13 (around a 38” bust, if you’re very lucky).
So when ModCloth announced their Gunne Sax revival, admirers of the brand were excited. Imagine finding your favorite Gunne Sax style in your size, with no bidding wars or price gouging! The collection goes up to a modern 4X, a size that was previously unattainable. ModCloth hosted a trunk show-style live stream and released the capsule collection with an appropriate amount of fanfare.
And overall, everyone was…
Disappointed.
But for very different reasons.
Some people thought it needed more pastels!
Other people expected more goth-inspired styles!
Some were upset with the modern smocked backs, while others thought the peplum was the “wrong shape”.
The prints felt “off,” but everyone’s idea of the perfect print proved wildly different.
And many people were disappointed by the quality (which is entirely in line with this lower price point, from my professional point of view. Did we really think we were going to get 1970s USA-made craftsmanship for only $150 in 2023?).1
But that’s the thing about cult-fave brands like Gunne Sax: We all love them for different reasons.
We take these brands and idealize specific things about them, whether it’s certain cuts, particular fabrics, or the mood they invoke that’s our favorite. Then we latch onto that brand, even when we all love different things about it. We style the dresses in relatively modern ways, and we think that what we personally love about a brand is what everyone else loves about it, too. But that’s never the full truth.
I don’t know that the ModCloth collection is a failure, per se, but by reviving a legendary brand that so many people love for so many different reasons, and trying to capture it within such a narrow range of products, they set themselves up to fail.
Or maybe we all just set our expectations too high.
I do want this blouse, tho.
what’s blooming today
One of my friend’s families owns a little cottage in the “mostly defunct” Borscht Belt—think the setting of Dirty Dancing or The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel season two, but like, not that fancy—and a group of us drove up for four whole days over the extra-long weekend.
We hiked through a forest to an icy cold waterfall, paddled out into a tree-lined lake, sat in a blissfully empty community pool (empty! On July 4th!), said hi to yellow-throated frogs, and tubed down the Delaware River. It stormed off and on through all of it, wispy white clouds billowing into grey pillows that broke into thunder and big wet droplets when the humidity became too much to bear. But what’s a little rain when you’re already in your swimsuit all weekend?
Here’s what bloomed over the July 4th weekend:
Pink and white rhododendron petals falling onto dirt trails,
Mountain Laurel buds that look like tiny piped icing stars,
So much good moss everywhere!!! Tiny stars, fuzzy lumps, miniature green buds on spindly stems,
Pastel blue-green lichen on every piece of bark,
Fluffy ferns carpeting the forest floor in fluorescent green,
Powder blue forget-me-nots at the side of the river.
Thank you for reading this week’s post 💘 I’d love to hear what you think, or what you want to see more of next time! Leave a comment at the button below and let me know~ And subscribe for fun things like a summer perfume round-up, coming next time because I had toooo many thoughts on peasant dresses.
All quotes and thoughts paraphrased from comments in various Gunne Sax Facebook groups, like Gunne Sax Collective. Because this is my newsletter and no one is paying me to cite my specific sources🙆♀️
Fluffy ferns is a perfect way of describing that serene scene.
Loved the Gunne Sax commentary, I was not familiar at all with its history!