I’ve had three Gunne Sax dresses in my life, each purchased new. But the first— a confection in pink voile and lace—left an impression that never faded.
I was 14 when I joined the Seattle Junior Symphony, one of the training orchestras for the Seattle Youth Symphony. We were required to wear long dresses for concerts. My mother, newly widowed and returning to work, was too overwhelmed to sew one for me as she might have in earlier days.
Instead, she took me to Bronka, a magical little boutique in University Village. There, I saw it: an unapologetically romantic dress in pale pink. It cost a small fortune—$45. My mother grimaced and said, “At that price, you’ll wear it for concerts, dances, get married in it and be buried in it!”
My dress, shown in an ad from the Long Beach Press Telegram, 1975.
Gunne Sax was wildly popular then—girls and young women loved its nostalgic femininity, worn without irony. Yet there was enough variety that few showed up wearing the same dress.
I hadn’t been playing horn for long when I wore that dress to my first Junior Symphony concert. But I can still recall the feeling: I loved what I was wearing, and that made me feel like I belonged onstage.
I also played in a horn quartet with three other girls at Eckstein Middle School. For competitions and recitals, we each wore long dresses. After one church performance, an older woman took my hand and told me I looked like a classic beauty. I said, “It’s the dress.”
The next year, when I joined the Seattle Youth Symphony, we wore a uniform blouse and skirt. Still, I wore that pink dress at every opportunity—dances, recitals, and anywhere it was allowed.
SYSO 1976
That dress lives on in memory, tied as it is to my mother’s love, my growing musicianship, my city—and my favorite color. She was right: I didn’t get married or buried in it, but I wore it into my future.