Our Mission
The Promise Dress by Jay Day Dress Co. is an awakening within the fashion world. One dress with 20+ unique looks is a pioneering solution to the rampant production and over-consumption in the clothing industry. The Promise Dress is a compassionate, complete, and thoughtful response to the unceasing demand for ‘new’ and for the Earth’s deep need for healing. The planet, a rose, and the human heart are round like The Promise Dress because they exist in wholeness.
Since 2000, clothing production has doubled but the clothes were only kept for half as long (American Chemical Society). When clothes are thrown away, 85 percent end up landfilled or incinerated (CALPIRG). This cycle of over-production and over-consumption makes fashion the second leading polluter behind fossil fuels. Journeying toward higher consciousness through fashion is a process of purification which flows in cycles and circles. Our work as human beings is to connect to that internal path of infinite evolution within and without.
Jay Day's efforts to purify the rock we live on, called Earth, is at the forefront of our work and The Promise Dress is a design that invites customers to play, create and ponder more deeply love, joy, and peace.
Left: Julius "Jack" Davis. Right: Jack's wife Jean (middle) with seamstresses in front of Jay Day Dress Co. offices in NYC.
Our Heritage
In 1932, Jay Day Dress Co. was originally founded in New York City by Julius "Jack" Davis. At its height, Jay Day sold 200,000 dresses per month to JCPenney and other retailers across the country during the worst years of the Great Depression. Jay Day's success provided seed money for Jack's young son Marvin Davis to become one of America's youngest and most successful wildcatters.
Full circle: Jay Day Dress Co. is resurrected by Jack’s great-granddaughter Julia James Davis. She was born and raised in Houston, Texas and is equipped with firsthand knowledge of both the fashion and the petroleum industry.
Left: Julia with grand-father Marvin Davis. Right: Julia on a drilling site in West Texas.
Left: Jay Day Dress Co. advertisement from Seventeen Magazine 1947. Right: The Original Jay Day Dress Co. clothing label.