The Sun Has Set on Sundance

That both Robert Redford and the retail business he created, Sundance, should leave us within days of each other, has a certain sad poetry to it. The iconic apparel and home retailer that Redford started as an offshoot of his Sundance Village in Utah and then went on to have a 36-year run as first a catalog and then retail stores, has gone out of business, just days before he himself passed away.

Last weekend it shut down the last of its stores and its online activities following an involuntary chapter 7 bankruptcy filing initiated by its creditors. According to published reports, five petitioners said they were owed over $2.5 million. Under a series of private equity owners, Sundance slowly went downhill until it crashed and burned this month.

Redford, who started the business as a general store in his Sundance Resort and eventually expanded it to direct sales, sold the Salt Lake City-based catalog business to private equity firms ACI Capital and Webster Capital in 2004. At the time the deal was valued between $20 million and $40 million, according to Dow Jones newswire.

Brentwood Associates acquired a majority stake in 2012 and then sold it back to Webster Capital, based in Massachusetts, in 2018. At the time of its closing, it was unclear exactly who owned Sundance, which had rebranded as Sundance Living earlier this year. Other than as a celebrity spokesperson in its catalogs, Redford had no role in running the company after the first sale.

Sundance was never a very large player in the retail space: there were no reliable estimates on how big its business was but at its peak it had some 500 employees and 15 stores. Yet the signature look of its merchandise gave it a distinctive voice in the marketplace, reflective of Redford’s original vision.

“At the base of Sundance Village is the General Store,” the company wrote in an online history, “offering guests a well-curated collection of clothing, jewelry and gifts, items with a heritage in the American West, blending the art of Native Americans and other western craftspeople with examples from other native cultures around the world.”

And while apparel, fashion accessories and jewelry dominated its merchandise mix, it had a surprisingly robust amount of home merchandise, including furniture, rugs, lighting, home décor, decorative pillows and bedding as well as tabletop. Most of it adhered to a western and native American design bent, often coming from small craftsmen and workshops whose products were exclusive to Sundance. Prices were towards the higher end of the spectrum with dec pillows selling for more than $100, rugs as high as $1,000 in larger sizes and upholstered furniture and case pieces often well over $5,000.

At the end, the website showed a paltry offering of a few pillows, some home décor and a couple of Christmas ornaments. Most of the items still pictured often were listed as “sold out.” As it closed, the Sundance website thanked its customers, saying, “As we bid you farewell, our hearts are filled with gratitude for your loyalty, kindness, and support throughout the years. This journey wouldn’t have been possible without you.”

In the meantime there were complaints from customers on social media while vendors also voiced concerns of unreturned samples and a change in resources away from its original craftsmen and makers. Anyone paying attention could see the end was near.

Redford died earlier this week at age 89 and was also no longer involved in the resort, which he sold several years ago, and the well-known Sundance Film Festival. His passing and the end for the Sundance retail business sadly recall the statement he made on the company’s storyline on its website so many years ago: “To us, Sundance is, and always will be, a dream…”

That dream is now over.