The Robb Dress: The Dress That Anchored Sister Aloyse's Reputation
On December 9, 1967, Lynda Bird Johnson, daughter of President Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson, married Charles Spittal Robb, son of James Robb and Frances Howard Robb, at the White House. Mrs. Frances Robb was a fashion illustrator for a Milwaukee store. Her mother-of-the-groom dress was designed and created by Sister Aloyse Hessburg, along with the matching hat.
Mrs. Robb was very pleased with the dress, and the national attention it drew buoyed the new fashion design program at Mount Mary and cemented Sister Aloyse's reputation in the field of fashion.
This page includes photos of the dress, details regarding its creation, and correspondence about it received by Sister Aloyse after the event.
Handwritten notes on Robb dressmaking
To the right are handwritten notes by Sister Aloyse on making the Robb dress. The entire design and creation process occurred within just a few months in fall 1967. Sister Aloyse notes that the buttons were made by Sister Rosemarita (Huebner) and mentions having "shopped before + after Thanksgiving for just the right accessories." Everything was finished early, in time to be picked up December 1, and then she "Watched the paper with more than usual interest waiting for the White House to release the news (Dec. 7)." Click the image to see it in more detail.
According to a New York Times article from January 9, 1968, keeping the dress design a secret was difficult. Sister Aloyse and Mrs. Robb used pseudonyms when communicating about it (Joanne Hessburg and Mrs. James, respectively), and Sister Aloyse worked alone after school hours to design and sew the dress, with the construction being done in her bedroom.
Below are two invoices for materials used in the dressmaking. Click the images to see more detail.
Invoice from W. Morton Brown, Inc.
Invoice from A. Werner
Sister Aloyse Hessburg with the dress she designed and created for Mrs. Frances Howard Robb
Sister Aloyse Hessburg holding Mrs. Robb's dress
The images above and to the left show Sister Aloyse with the finished dress. The photographs were printed in the Milwaukee Journal and the (Indiana) Sunday Post-Tribune. The Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, and other newspapers nationally also reported the details of Mrs. Robb's dress and its creator, and several articles mentioned the fashion design program at Mount Mary College.
The photographs below show Mrs. Robb wearing the dress at the wedding.
Lynda Bird Johnson and Charles Robb wedding photo (Mrs. Robb is third from right)
Frances Howard Robb and James Robb at their son's wedding
Letter from Frances Howard Robb to Sister John Francis Schuh, December 20, 1967
Mrs. Robb was very happy with the dress, calling it a "beautiful success" in the letter she wrote to Sister John Francis Schuh, president of Mount Mary College, afterwards (see letter to the right). She indicated that there was "a great deal of interest" about Sister Aloyse, Sister Rosemarita, and Mount Mary in general. She also made plans to return the dress to Mount Mary, where it is now part of the Fashion Archive and has been digitized for the Digital Fashion Archive.
Besides the letter, Mrs. Robb sent an official White House photograph of the wedding party (see below) with the inscription "With my thanks to Sister John Francis and Sister Aloyse and Sister Rose Marita [sic] for their help in making this a most beautiful and historic wedding. With my love - Frances Robb."
Lynda Bird Johnson and Charles Robb wedding photo with inscription
The dress and the resulting publicity raised awareness nationally of the fashion design program at Mount Mary, as the letters below help demonstrate. Robert C. Landsiedel, Associate Director of Alumni Affairs at Drexel Institute of Technology (where Sister Aloyse earned her master's degree in textiles) extended congratulations to Sister Aloyse and asked for a photograph to use when mentioning her achievement in the spring 1968 alumni newsletter. A woman named Mary in Illinois wrote to Sister Aloyse, saying she'd read the Lynda Johnson wedding story in the newspaper, was interested in fashion design, and would like to learn more, and asked for information about Mount Mary. Sister John Francis Schuh thanked Eleanor Coleman of the Milwaukee Journal for the paper's "fine publicity" of the dress.
Letter from Robert C. Landsiedel to Sister Aloyse Hessburg
Letter from Mary M. to Sister Aloyse Hessburg
Letter from Sister John Francis Schuh to Eleanor Coleman
Many people wrote to Sister Aloyse with congratulations and critiques. One letter expressed "disapproval of back zippers," and the length of the skirt provoked strong opinions, with one writer asking, "how can anyone in a right-thinking mind sanction the length of it - for a mature woman." But overall people agreed that the dress was "lovely" and "just beautiful and very appropriate for the occasion," and were glad to see Sister Aloyse "making history."
Letter from Eleanor M. F. to Sister Aloyse Hessburg
Letter from E.Y. to Sister Aloyse Hessburg
Letter to Sister Aloyse Hessburg
Letter from R.A. to Sister Aloyse Hessburg
