"In 1983, Women’s Wear Daily featured Laura Ashley’s Bloomsday collection, 'inspired by the genteel England of Virginia Woolf’s time.'"
I, er. Had Women's Wear Daily ever read any Virginia Woolf? And had Laura Ashley's designers read any Joyce? Because I don't think that statement of brand identity is saying what they thought it was saying.
"The Nap Dress, like all products targeted at women intended to provide leisure, also doubles as a work dress — adaptable to childcare (the ruched top works for nursing; the length makes it easy to chase kids without flashing anyone), domestic chores, or appropriating the costume of feminine formality for a quick work Zoom call. You can wear a bra with it or, you know, maybe not."
But does it have pockets????? I bet it doesn't! Which means, like all women's clothing, it isn't *actually* practical or useful as a "work dress" if you don't have a place to put your phone, a binkie, a kleenex, etc. I've taken to wearing a fanny pack when doing chores/errands because none of my "work" clothes (athleisure, mostly) have useful pockets. I hate it!
Am I the only one who thinks THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson when I see “Hill House”? That’s the only frame of reference I can use for this.
As a costume designer I find this all *very* interesting. I (also being childless) have avoided knowing exactly what the nap dress is and having looked them up I realize now that some late 90's grunge fashion was a rejection/re-appropriation of elements of the Laura Ashley aesthetic. Specifically I'm noticing that the shorter Nap Dresses remind me of the babydoll look that Courtney Love mainstreamed. I've also always held the opinion that while the Laura Ashley aesthetic was a juggernaut in it's own right it was reinforced (at least in the Christian PNW circles I grew up in) by the Anne of Green Gables tv series. However, I'm not aware of where in Oregon int the 80's/90's one would have acquired an actual Laura Ashley anything. Nordstrom? Maybe the Bon Marche? Were they sold outside of their own storefronts? But there were knockoffs aplenty and I definitely wore a few in late high school in contrast to my flannel grunge/borderline goth daywear. Man, the 90's were a weird time in fashion.
I cut a little detour into grunge/Courtney Love and you've said it better than what I had written (I, personally, moved from Laura Ashley --> grunge as well). And in PDX, I bet you there would've been a store down near Nordstrom!
Aaaaand I purchased a vintage 90's nap-style-dress at a thrift shop this weekend. Salmon pink, three tier skirt, plain tank instead of smocking. $7 price tag. More hippie than influencer, but I might not have given it a second glance before this newsletter so thanks AHP. ;)
When I started college in 1988, a girl from Baton Rouge in my dorm brought a whole basket of Laura Ashley fabric & spent a whole day wallpapering her dorm room with it. As an urban kid from Seattle without a lot of money, I'd never heard of the brand before that. It may have been the first time I even saw a brand identity obsession like that.
These new dresses seem to reinforce - & also force - the ideal of the fulfilled mom, the mom who not only has it all together, but loves everything about doing it. Childcare is a joy, a matter of throwing a charming, simple dress on your girl (always a girl) & in so doing reflecting the charm you still have capacity to cultivate in yourself. It always strikes me as a profoundly white ideal, even when catalogs show some diversity in their models.
The Baby-Sitters Club girls like Mary Anne, Dawn and even Kristy (I think?) often wore Laura Ashley dresses for fancy occasions. Mary Anne was the typical obedient good girl, so the style choice makes perfect sense. Claudia and Stacey were the cool girls, way too cool for Laura Ashley.
When I was 6 or so my mom and I had matching daisy print, navy, sleeveless Storybook Heirlooms (what a name!) dresses. They were a nice material so I was definitely only allowed to wear it to church. Ironically, a year ago I found it in my mom's closet and have started wearing it, but perhaps not in the vein it was intended, I am more well-endowed than my mom was and can only wear the dress with the top button undone, sans bra and with quite a bit of cleavage. It works in the current aesthetic and in Phoenix its very comfortable like this, but I love that its a bit of a dichotomy from where the dress started its life.
I find it SO deeply weird when a parent and child (or any family members or really members of any kind of tight-knit group) dress alike. And, although I grew up in the '80s and early '90s, I do not remember matching outfits or Laura Ashley dresses being a thing at _all_ with anyone I knew. I'm fascinated hearing more about Nap Dresses, though -- the few times I've heard them mentioned (I'm not an Instagram or other social media user, so I miss a lot of the marketing fads, I think) I just always think "So...they invented nightgowns?" So a bigger explanation there was very enlightening!
Yes!! A friend and I dressed alike to see a movie once when we were about 17 - bell bottoms, small tees, lumberjackets, typical 90s esthetic. Then we were embarrassed about looking identical, like how stupid and childish were we? And we never did it again.
I loved this dissertation. Communicating class is one of the things that has fascinated me in recent years and the nap dress absolutely does that. Would attend your graduate level course in this subject!
I just asked my best friend if we (she, her 2yo, her mom and me) can all wear matching dresses at the beach next month. Personally I look forward with delight to the whispered comments of onlookers wondering if we are members of a cult. As a childless millennial, I am absolutely fascinated by how weird this is and also how nostalgic it makes me for my knock off Samantha American Girl doll, my Holly Hobbie lavender bedspread and canopy bed cover.
Also, I had no idea how much I needed a deep dive into the profound weirdness of Laura Ashley!
NGL, I have a two year old and love the Mommy-and-Me aesthetic...my daughter turned 2 on Saturday and I semi-matched my daughter...her dress wasn't a nap dress (blue and white) but mine was (blue and red). We have several matching T-shirts as well...I'm running with it now while she's young before she's too cool to match her mom, lol. I really want to buy us matching dresses from Princess Awesome & Boy Wonder (a company whose clothing purposely breaks gender stereotypes) but their price point isn't in my budget at the moment.
Growing up, I wore some knock-off Laura Ashley style clothing but my mom never matched our outfits. No idea why she didn't - I'll have to ask her - I don't remember either one of us having an opinion on it either way. I was born in 1987, though, so past the matching prime. I remember Laura Ashley more for its bedding than for its clothing (and since my first name is Laura, that name stuck out to me!) - maybe because they sold a lower quality version of the bedding in Hecht's? My bedroom was very much knock-off Laura Ashley, though, and I loved it. Pink frills with a canopy bed and all!
I bought a charming pair of Laura Ashley black flats at a re-sale store a decade ago. They took me walking all over several vacation destinations in style. Explicitly, I loved that they were all of good-looking, feminine, comfortable & durable. I don’t think you can buy that in women's shoes anywhere today. I think everyyone has been forced into a conviction that femininity is a leisure thing, or maybe nothing at all. Great cultural achievement.
I've always wondered why I, as an Asian woman with immigrant parents, couldn't get on board with the cottagecore trend and the nap dress, but this article explains exactly why I can't identify with it (i.e., that "old-fashioned, unapologetic white femininity"). Thanks for this insightful post!
As a child of the 80s, I begged my mother to buy/sew matching dresses for us. The most she would concede was purchasing matching white jeans with large pastel flowers printed on them at the VF outlet in Reading, PA. (They must have been on the clearance rack for her to give in ... Mom is most definitely not a white-jeans-with-pastel-flowers person. And neither am I, now.)
We wore them together in public once, and soon after I outgrew my pair. Mom probably buried hers in the bottom of a drawer, with relief!
Found the “addicted to and annoyed with” sentiment lacking any emotional range whatsoever. I don’t personally know any mother who would endorse that line.
Three memories: when I lived in London in the early 80s, we used to go by the Laura Ashley rejects shop at least once a week. Also, that periwinkle blue sailor dress is very similar to (if not the same as) the one my sister selected for me to wear as a bridesmaid (possibly even MoH? I can't remember) in her 1990 summer wedding. I might have matched with the flower girl even (I CAN'T REMEMBER). 3: I really really wanted a set of certain Laura Ashley crib sheets and bumpers and things for my infant son's room in 1997 and the pattern was being "retired" so my mom bought what she could find in the US and my English MIL found the fabric and SEWED everything else. In the end, I never used any of it except the laundry bag. Also, before reading this, I would have sworn that Laura Ashey the brand and I had never interacted.
"In 1983, Women’s Wear Daily featured Laura Ashley’s Bloomsday collection, 'inspired by the genteel England of Virginia Woolf’s time.'"
I, er. Had Women's Wear Daily ever read any Virginia Woolf? And had Laura Ashley's designers read any Joyce? Because I don't think that statement of brand identity is saying what they thought it was saying.
I KNOW, RIGHT
"The Nap Dress, like all products targeted at women intended to provide leisure, also doubles as a work dress — adaptable to childcare (the ruched top works for nursing; the length makes it easy to chase kids without flashing anyone), domestic chores, or appropriating the costume of feminine formality for a quick work Zoom call. You can wear a bra with it or, you know, maybe not."
But does it have pockets????? I bet it doesn't! Which means, like all women's clothing, it isn't *actually* practical or useful as a "work dress" if you don't have a place to put your phone, a binkie, a kleenex, etc. I've taken to wearing a fanny pack when doing chores/errands because none of my "work" clothes (athleisure, mostly) have useful pockets. I hate it!
*hops off soapbox*
Am I the only one who thinks THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE by Shirley Jackson when I see “Hill House”? That’s the only frame of reference I can use for this.
As a costume designer I find this all *very* interesting. I (also being childless) have avoided knowing exactly what the nap dress is and having looked them up I realize now that some late 90's grunge fashion was a rejection/re-appropriation of elements of the Laura Ashley aesthetic. Specifically I'm noticing that the shorter Nap Dresses remind me of the babydoll look that Courtney Love mainstreamed. I've also always held the opinion that while the Laura Ashley aesthetic was a juggernaut in it's own right it was reinforced (at least in the Christian PNW circles I grew up in) by the Anne of Green Gables tv series. However, I'm not aware of where in Oregon int the 80's/90's one would have acquired an actual Laura Ashley anything. Nordstrom? Maybe the Bon Marche? Were they sold outside of their own storefronts? But there were knockoffs aplenty and I definitely wore a few in late high school in contrast to my flannel grunge/borderline goth daywear. Man, the 90's were a weird time in fashion.
I cut a little detour into grunge/Courtney Love and you've said it better than what I had written (I, personally, moved from Laura Ashley --> grunge as well). And in PDX, I bet you there would've been a store down near Nordstrom!
Aaaaand I purchased a vintage 90's nap-style-dress at a thrift shop this weekend. Salmon pink, three tier skirt, plain tank instead of smocking. $7 price tag. More hippie than influencer, but I might not have given it a second glance before this newsletter so thanks AHP. ;)
I miss plaid flannel shirts. Looking back, they were so practical.
If you go to the Laura Ashley website now, there are (white, skinny) girls wearing babydoll dresses with Birkenstocks. Fascinating.
Thank you for this meditation!
When I started college in 1988, a girl from Baton Rouge in my dorm brought a whole basket of Laura Ashley fabric & spent a whole day wallpapering her dorm room with it. As an urban kid from Seattle without a lot of money, I'd never heard of the brand before that. It may have been the first time I even saw a brand identity obsession like that.
These new dresses seem to reinforce - & also force - the ideal of the fulfilled mom, the mom who not only has it all together, but loves everything about doing it. Childcare is a joy, a matter of throwing a charming, simple dress on your girl (always a girl) & in so doing reflecting the charm you still have capacity to cultivate in yourself. It always strikes me as a profoundly white ideal, even when catalogs show some diversity in their models.
The Baby-Sitters Club girls like Mary Anne, Dawn and even Kristy (I think?) often wore Laura Ashley dresses for fancy occasions. Mary Anne was the typical obedient good girl, so the style choice makes perfect sense. Claudia and Stacey were the cool girls, way too cool for Laura Ashley.
When I was 6 or so my mom and I had matching daisy print, navy, sleeveless Storybook Heirlooms (what a name!) dresses. They were a nice material so I was definitely only allowed to wear it to church. Ironically, a year ago I found it in my mom's closet and have started wearing it, but perhaps not in the vein it was intended, I am more well-endowed than my mom was and can only wear the dress with the top button undone, sans bra and with quite a bit of cleavage. It works in the current aesthetic and in Phoenix its very comfortable like this, but I love that its a bit of a dichotomy from where the dress started its life.
My neighbor used to get those catalogs, and I was OBSESSED!
I find it SO deeply weird when a parent and child (or any family members or really members of any kind of tight-knit group) dress alike. And, although I grew up in the '80s and early '90s, I do not remember matching outfits or Laura Ashley dresses being a thing at _all_ with anyone I knew. I'm fascinated hearing more about Nap Dresses, though -- the few times I've heard them mentioned (I'm not an Instagram or other social media user, so I miss a lot of the marketing fads, I think) I just always think "So...they invented nightgowns?" So a bigger explanation there was very enlightening!
Yes!! A friend and I dressed alike to see a movie once when we were about 17 - bell bottoms, small tees, lumberjackets, typical 90s esthetic. Then we were embarrassed about looking identical, like how stupid and childish were we? And we never did it again.
I loved this dissertation. Communicating class is one of the things that has fascinated me in recent years and the nap dress absolutely does that. Would attend your graduate level course in this subject!
I just asked my best friend if we (she, her 2yo, her mom and me) can all wear matching dresses at the beach next month. Personally I look forward with delight to the whispered comments of onlookers wondering if we are members of a cult. As a childless millennial, I am absolutely fascinated by how weird this is and also how nostalgic it makes me for my knock off Samantha American Girl doll, my Holly Hobbie lavender bedspread and canopy bed cover.
Also, I had no idea how much I needed a deep dive into the profound weirdness of Laura Ashley!
NGL, I have a two year old and love the Mommy-and-Me aesthetic...my daughter turned 2 on Saturday and I semi-matched my daughter...her dress wasn't a nap dress (blue and white) but mine was (blue and red). We have several matching T-shirts as well...I'm running with it now while she's young before she's too cool to match her mom, lol. I really want to buy us matching dresses from Princess Awesome & Boy Wonder (a company whose clothing purposely breaks gender stereotypes) but their price point isn't in my budget at the moment.
Growing up, I wore some knock-off Laura Ashley style clothing but my mom never matched our outfits. No idea why she didn't - I'll have to ask her - I don't remember either one of us having an opinion on it either way. I was born in 1987, though, so past the matching prime. I remember Laura Ashley more for its bedding than for its clothing (and since my first name is Laura, that name stuck out to me!) - maybe because they sold a lower quality version of the bedding in Hecht's? My bedroom was very much knock-off Laura Ashley, though, and I loved it. Pink frills with a canopy bed and all!
I bought a charming pair of Laura Ashley black flats at a re-sale store a decade ago. They took me walking all over several vacation destinations in style. Explicitly, I loved that they were all of good-looking, feminine, comfortable & durable. I don’t think you can buy that in women's shoes anywhere today. I think everyyone has been forced into a conviction that femininity is a leisure thing, or maybe nothing at all. Great cultural achievement.
I've always wondered why I, as an Asian woman with immigrant parents, couldn't get on board with the cottagecore trend and the nap dress, but this article explains exactly why I can't identify with it (i.e., that "old-fashioned, unapologetic white femininity"). Thanks for this insightful post!
As a child of the 80s, I begged my mother to buy/sew matching dresses for us. The most she would concede was purchasing matching white jeans with large pastel flowers printed on them at the VF outlet in Reading, PA. (They must have been on the clearance rack for her to give in ... Mom is most definitely not a white-jeans-with-pastel-flowers person. And neither am I, now.)
We wore them together in public once, and soon after I outgrew my pair. Mom probably buried hers in the bottom of a drawer, with relief!
Found the “addicted to and annoyed with” sentiment lacking any emotional range whatsoever. I don’t personally know any mother who would endorse that line.
Three memories: when I lived in London in the early 80s, we used to go by the Laura Ashley rejects shop at least once a week. Also, that periwinkle blue sailor dress is very similar to (if not the same as) the one my sister selected for me to wear as a bridesmaid (possibly even MoH? I can't remember) in her 1990 summer wedding. I might have matched with the flower girl even (I CAN'T REMEMBER). 3: I really really wanted a set of certain Laura Ashley crib sheets and bumpers and things for my infant son's room in 1997 and the pattern was being "retired" so my mom bought what she could find in the US and my English MIL found the fabric and SEWED everything else. In the end, I never used any of it except the laundry bag. Also, before reading this, I would have sworn that Laura Ashey the brand and I had never interacted.