It's too hot. Our sundress season of discontent isn't helping
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A woman on TikTok asked: What is a sundress? Ten million views later, the debate is still raging. Above, Four models in summer dresses in 1972.Evening Standard / Hulton Archive/Getty Images -
Taylor Swift at The CMA Music Festival on June 13, 2010 in Nashville, Tenn.Rick Diamond / Getty Images -
Models Endy Cartnell (left) and Selina, on the King's Road, Chelsea, London in 1973.John Minihan / Hulton Archive/ /Getty Images -
A mother and daughter in 1955.Chaloner Woods / Hulton Archive/Getty Images -
American actress, singer and dancer Marpessa Dawn pictured on a balcony on June 1st, 1960.Evening Standard/Getty Images / Hulton Archive
“What is a sundress?” wondered a young woman in plaintive tones on TikTok. “I own every dress. Which is the sun one?”
Nearly 10 million views later, that burning question continues to light up social media. Reaction videos included an influencer in Atlanta spelling out how “sundress season” in her Black community means Skims-style dresses that are long and tight, rather than flowy skirts with a fitted bodice. A good-natured, self-described mansplainer admitted that, although no expert in women’s fashion, he knows what he likes. Specifically, what he called “milkmaid style” dresses, preferably in yellow. “Cause we are simple,” he says. “Yellow, sun.”
Which cuts to the crux of the sundress stakes. It’s not just what a sundress is, says Vox writer Rebecca Jennings. It’s who a sundress is for.
“Some men were complaining that women aren’t wearing sundresses ‘like they used to,’” Jennings notes. “Which feels like a very reactionary response to changing gender dynamics.”
Jennings traced the early days of what we now call the sundress in an expansively researched essay called “The sundress discourse, explained.” The garment, she wrote, became a summer staple in the postwar period, popularized by pioneering female sportswear designers such as Claire McCardell and Carolyn Schnurer.
“They’re dresses that were meant to be worn without these fussy undergarments,” she explains, meaning without girdles or even pantyhose. The designer Lilly Pulitzer, known for her bright prints and boutique-y brand, helped make sundresses, at first a style associated with children, respectable even for grown women.
The sundress as male fetish object joined the cultural conversation through the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother, Jennings says. In a 2010 episode, the resident toxic male creep does a whole bit about sundresses. And since then, the mainstream cultural discourse around the sundress has changed accordingly, as reflected in some of the TikTok videos responding to the original query.
Disputes over sundresses right now are really about contemporary concerns, Jennings suggests, ranging from fast fashion to obsessions over gender norms. But, she adds, none of this should stop sundress fans from reaching for that lightweight little frock in the closet designed with hot weather in mind. “It’s not the sundress’s fault,” she points out, with a laugh.
Edited for radio and the web by Jennifer Vanasco.
Transcript
DON GONYEA, HOST:
When this summer started heating up, a young woman went online to ask a simple question.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK)
JACQUELINE RYAN: Dudes, what is a sundress? I own every dress. Which one is the sun one?
GONYEA: This TikTok video has gotten nearly 10 million views so far, and NPR's Neda Ulaby says it might have started nearly as many arguments.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: The summer of our sundress discontent has been chronicled by Rebecca Jennings. She wrote in an article for Vox about the woman so stymied by sundresses.
REBECCA JENNINGS: She got so many different answers that she ended up just being more confused about what a sundress even was.
ULABY: Yeah. There are real questions.
JENNINGS: Does the skirt have to be flowy? Can they have sleeves?
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Give me long but not super tight.
ULABY: People made reaction videos, lots of them, spelling out sundress specifications. One TikToker in Atlanta suggested the definition of a sundress might be cultural and depend in part upon your race. She modeled a clingy yellow number looking smashing.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: This is what we're talking about when we say a sundress. This is what we think of - or a lot of people I know that share the same hue. This is a sundress, baby. It's form-fitting. This is not...
ULABY: Another part of this argument is not about what a sundress is.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK)
RYAN TREMBACKI: This is a sundress.
ULABY: It's about who a sundress is for.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK)
TREMBACKI: This is it - sundress, sundress, sundress.
ULABY: One guy on TikTok cheerfully mansplained what he liked to see using pictures scraped from basic online retailers.
(SOUNDBITE OF TIKTOK)
TREMBACKI: And before you get me started, I know all these pictures are from Shein. What do you want me to do? They have great SEO.
JENNINGS: You know, some men were complaining that women aren't wearing sundresses like they used to, which sounds like a very reactionary response to changing gender dynamics.
ULABY: Writer Rebecca Jennings says that is actually buried in the foundations, so to speak, of the garment itself. Historically, sundresses spring from the sunny era of postwar America.
JENNINGS: They are dresses that were meant to be worn without, you know, these fussy undergarments.
ULABY: Women wanted to move. Disputes over sundresses right now might really be about our contemporary concerns, Jennings says, fast fashion or current obsessions with gender norms. But she adds, none of this should stop sundress fans from reaching for that lightweight little frock in the closet designed with hot weather in mind.
JENNINGS: It's not really the sundress' fault.
ULABY: Neda Ulaby, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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