Closing of Eternity Wedding and Formal Gown Company

In November 2011, I discovered that the Eternity modest bridal and formal gown company, which was one of the very first that we featured here on our site, closed officially on October 12, 2011. For nearly a year prior to this date, I have known thanks to Lynette Robinson at The Gallery by Lynnette that Eternity was assumed to be out of business by retailers such as herself who had carried the line in past years. Even though Eternity had not been returning phone calls or emails for months, the website had remained online, however. We kept it in our reviews until this week, hoping that eventually a re-opening would be announced. Apparently, it is not to be. The site is now offline, and the official closing was announced on Facebook.

My first introduction to Eternity gowns came through an ad in the Dallas, Texas, apparel market material given to buyers at the shows around 2006. The ad immediately caught my attention because the featured bridal dress was both modest and beautiful, a rare commodity. According to Eternity's Facebook profile, the manufacturing business began in 1990. Jane Walker had been designing and sewing custom gowns for clients in Michigan for years and then retailing other brands through her and her husband's Walkers' Bridal Emporium in Utah since 1984. From 1984 to 1990, Jane continued to use her skills as a seamstress to alter for modesty the dress brands they carried in the store. Then in 1990, she decided to design and mass manufacture her own line of modest dresses to help supply the need for dresses that were cut modestly from the beginning. Eternity was one of the earliest pioneers of bridal and formal wear that was both modest and modern as mainstream bridal styles began to shift to nearly all strapless designs in the mid-1990s. Around 500 retailers in the United States carried the Eternity line.

Lynette Robinson provided me with a little more history about the company. She said that the founders, Jeff and Jane Walker have a daughter and son who were active in the business. The daughter Jana took over the business, and later the Walker's son stepped in to handle manufacturing. Over the last decade, many other modest bridal and formal gown manufacturers have emerged as competition, but we still loved the Eternity website and many of the beautiful designs that were offered. Because of their length of time in business, they had a broad collection of styles and an excellent reputation. Two of our favorite styles were featured in the screenshot that we used for our former review, pictured here now with this post.

We will miss you, Eternity, and we'd love to see your brand return if possible. Thanks for all of your fabulous years of serving the modest bridal and formal gown market. Current shoppers may find alternate resources in our reviews of stores with modest wedding dresses.