Avery Trufelman

It was just townly frocks behind this design, but they really hammed up how genius this dress was.

April Callahan in the Fashion Institute archives again.

Although Claire was always very candid that she wasn't the first to make a belted sack dress ever, she spoke very openly about her inspiration in Women's Wear Daily in November 1940.

So, yes, Claire was inspired by an Algerian dress.

Originality can be a little fuzzy in fashion.

However, that said, almost as soon as the monastic dress came out, it was immediately, exactly, directly ripped off.

It's in the advertisement for the monastic dress.

Wait, this is wild that it was introduced five weeks ago and they're like so aware that it's everywhere.

Which is so funny, right?

This is a dress by a company that until this point was just ripping off French designers, but as soon as they had their own original design ripped off, they were like, no.

It was copied all over the market despite efforts to protect it.

Historian and sewist Julie Elber again.

Essentially, Geist wasn't prepared for such a huge hit for Townley frocks.

He hadn't ordered enough fabric.

He hadn't hired enough help.

There was a huge backlog of orders for the monastic dress.

And then Townley couldn't compete with their own knockoffs.

The competition outran them.

The monastic dress should have launched Townley into the stratosphere, but instead, it hobbled them with legal fees.

As McArdle wrote, Geis has made such a mess of everything.