By J. SIBLEY LAW
Special for CTFashionMag.com
If you were a girl in the 1960s with a sense of classic style, you probably had a Jonathan Logan dress hanging in your closet. You might have had a few of them. They had a timeless appeal and most of their dresses were made for the “average” shopper. Said another way: they were affordable and they looked great.
In 1944, David Schwartz started the dress company featuring the design work of Dorris Varnum. In the 1950’s Jeanne Carr took over as designer and by 1966 it was a powerhouse of a label and the first women’s clothing company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Having started with just 10 employees, the company went on to include 14 labels including Bill Blass, Youth Guild, Butte Knit, and Bleeker Street, to name a few.
Recently, model Breanna Maria came to Connecticut on a tour of the Northeast. Hidden in her wardrobe was a sweet Jonathan Logan dress from her grandmother’s closet. She showed off the dress in a tiny meadow on the grounds of the Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, Conn.
The late afternoon sun captured the classic lines of the dress and the elegance that made Jonathan Logan so popular. The color matched a ripe Braeburn apple. With piping, designers fashioned a faux vest directly into the dress’s bodice.
After all these decades, this Jonathan Logan dress holds up. It moves with a light airiness, renders classic lines, and has one of the most sumptuous colors. It’s an elegant beauty that needs to come out of the archives and back into everyday life.
Thanks to Breanna Marie for sharing the dress.
-NYT: https://www.nytimes.com/1982/03/20/business/jonathan-logan-s-comeback-inc.html
-Vintage Fashion Guild: https://vintagefashionguild.org/label-resource/logan-jonathan/
PHOTOS by J. SIBLEY LAW
