Betsey Johnson’s designs are what you would expect from a woman who quite literally cartwheels down the runway: colorful, upbeat, and unapologetically spunky. In the brand’s heyday in the ’90s through the early 2000s, Johnson’s brick-and-mortars were packed to the brim with candy-colored dresses in crushed velvet and tulle, overrun with sweet, lipsticked sales associates (dubbed the pink ladies) happy to help anyone find the perfect bat mitzvah, graduation, or even mother of the bride dresses. Go to any event formal attended by young women and you were liable to see people dressed like cupcakes: poofy tulle skirts in white, aqua, and pink. For a more casual event, a velvet, lace-trimmed slip with a floral was par for the course. But while the brand attracted a cult-like fandom, Johnson was slipping into bankruptcy. In 2010, footwear mogul Steve Madden paid Johnson’s debt and bought the rights to the company—and her name.
Thirteen years later, a colorful corner of the internet remains almost religiously dedicated to Johnson. Instagram accounts like Nicole Blaje’s @betseyjohnsonpinklady serve as an archive in order to help collectors date their finds with authenticity, while creating a launchpad for fans to connect over Betsey and strike deals on vintage trades.
There is a small but passionate group of Betsey collectors, many of whom are now in their thirties, and have fond memories of the brand that have become inextricable from their teens and early twenties. “It was like 1999. I had saved up my money and I was going to make a pilgrimage to the Oak Street store [in Chicago] and, so help me God, I was getting a Betsey Johnson dress,” Blaje says. “It was a big deal because I grew up working class and I was taught that you don’t go into a store unless you have an intention to buy something.” Her obsession with Betsey turned into a career (she was a boutique employee from 2001-2008), and now—in an unofficial capacity—running her archive account.
Many collectors are drawn to Johnson because of the significant role her clothing played in their young lives. “It was my favorite place in the world,” says Steph Ermer of the store. Ermer started collecting in 2019, and has cultivated a popular TikTok account dedicated to her pieces. “I would take all my paychecks and go and spend my money at the Betsey stores.” Devin Shacket, another collector, concurs: “I have these amazing memories of wearing Betsey Johnson dresses to all these events when I was like 12, 13, 14 years old. I would come to New York with my parents, and the highlight of the trip was going to the Betsey Johnson store,” she says. Rachel Gilman, a stylist who sourced fabrics and prints for Betsey Johnson from 1996 to 1999, concurs. “I wore Betsey at my high school graduation,” she says.
Shacket came back to Betsey in 2021 when she decided to stop buying fast fashion. “I didn’t feel good in my clothes. I remember saying, When was the last time I really felt good and like it expressed who I was? I think that was when I was in high school and college and I was actually wearing a lot of Betsey Johnson," Shacket says. “I went on Poshmark and I started just buying dresses, and you know, $30, $40, $50—I didn’t ever spend more than $100.”
Ermer also found herself increasingly dissatisfied with the clothing options on the market when she plugged her favorite brand from high school, Betsey Johnson, into Poshmark. “It was a treasure trove. Everything was $20, $30—the most gorgeous things that you’ve ever seen. I was buying the cutest cherry-print dresses and bias cut silk slips for nothing,” she says.
But recently, the formerly under-the-radar community of Betsey collectors has gone mainstream, thanks to one Olivia Rodrigo, who has stepped out in multiple occasions in vintage dresses, including the now-sought-after ribbon dress, which she wore in London. It was really only a matter of time before the singer stepped out in the brand. Her spunky energy is perfectly analogous to Johnson’s poppy, punkish aesthetic. Blaje, Shacket, Gilman, and Ermer all mentioned the 20-year-old singer’s influence independently. “It was the Olivia Rodrigo event. All of a sudden the prices of all the dresses started to shoot up,” Shacket says. “I went from collecting and buying, selling, trading, and then the market just totally changed. Suddenly there’s no more dresses and people were charging more for them. So then I started charging more for them in order to buy other ones that are more expensive.”
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It’s not just Rodrigo driving the charge, though she did play a large role in the spike in interest. The brand’s sensibilities appeal to the new generation’s interest in ’90s and 2000s aesthetics. Gilman has handed many of her old pieces down to Hereditary actress Milly Shapiro. “The youth love and appreciate ’90s fashion, especially Betsey,” she says.
But as the shuttered brand gains more visibility, collectors are having mixed feelings.
“One just sold the other day for $1,000,” Ermer says of the ribbon dress, which Rodrigo recently wore. “I’ve seen the fruit print dresses sell for $1,500 to $2,000. I genuinely did not ever expect that. ”
For Ermer the fandom is a blessing and a curse. “On one hand, I’ve made such amazing friends who love Betsey and met so many great people through TikTok. But then on the other hand, it’s like a fight for my life to try and get the pieces that I’m looking for. Because if they do pop up, then it’s, like, 20 girls are messaging like, ‘I’ll pay $700, $800.’”
Blaje compares the recent fanfare to the price spike after a designer’s death, like in the case of Thierry Mugler, Vivienne Westwood, and Alexander McQueen. “It’s kind of fascinating because she’s still alive,” she says. As the owner of one of the most popular Betsey Johnson archive pages, she’s seen the effect of the wave in popularity firsthand. “I’ve definitely noticed an increase in people coming to me and asking, ‘How should I price this?’ It definitely didn’t happen when I first started.”
For Blaje, the new fans aren’t necessarily the problem. “I think the thing that’s been really heartbreaking for me is seeing that people have bought things, and then immediately put them up on the resale sites for hundreds of dollars.”
But some collectors are looking on the bright side of Betsey’s spike in popularity. Citing the designer’s promise to keep her prices “at or below the price of a round-trip weekend in Puerto Rico,” they say a price spike is to be expected. Inflation, plus the rarity of some of these sought-after pieces has forced Blaje to consider the other side. “I had to challenge myself to look at the supply and demand of it.” For Gilman, who worked closely with Johnson for three years, the success of Betsey Johnson the brand was due to Betsey Johnson the person. “She’s just so nice, talks to everybody, so lovely. She has such history with the Velvet Underground, being married to John Cale, friends with Andy Warhol, and just being a beacon of inspiration for so many people,” she says. Gilman sees her popularity as something long overdue: “Seeing things be priced much higher, I actually understand it and appreciate it because she’s a legend.”
