Sunday Supper: Wearing the Past with Purpose
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Time to read 3 min
History You Can Put On
A quilt that kept somebody warm a hundred years ago. A brass relic worn smooth by hands that are long gone. A pair of Wrangler jeans that already did a lifetime of work. Most people see the end of those things. Kate Mefford sees the next chapter.
Kate is the designer behind Sunday Supper, and she builds one-of-a-kind neckwear out of materials that carry their whole history with them. Her line on it is simple. She doesn't start from zero, she starts from meaning.
Nothing she makes has ever been made twice, and once you get your hands on one of her pieces, you understand why people line up for them.
A Brenham Ranch and an East Coast Closet
Kate grew up on a working cattle ranch in Brenham, Texas, with the polish of her mother's and grandmother's East Coast taste running underneath the dirt-road part. The look she landed on sits right between those two worlds. She calls it Southwestern ranch meets East Coast jet set, and it's the reason a Civil War buckle and a piece of antique lace can end up on the same collar and somehow make perfect sense.
Sunday Supper started small. One vintage denim bolo built on equestrian hardware, brought to a one-day pop-up at the Round Top Spring Show, where her very first collar sold. The brand grew about as fast as a thing can grow. Today she has a permanent structure at Zapp Hall and a wall of Texas women who buy from her on repeat. Kate calls it a table that keeps getting longer, which is about the most Sunday Supper thing she could say.
The Materials Do the Talking
The whole brand runs on what Kate calls iconic materials, things that arrived at history before she did.
Old quilts pieced together from worn-out clothes and flour sacks, faded and frayed, which she leaves exactly as they are because the wear is the point. Relics where the scratches and the tarnish are proof of a life, not a defect. Vintage Wrangler denim that already knows how to work. French military and chore pieces, sharp and utilitarian, softened against silk and lace. A Francophile to her core, she's spent weeks sourcing through France, and you can feel it in the work. She takes things that were never meant to go together and lets the tension between them be the design.
The Story Behind the Molly Goodnight
A lot of Kate's one-of-a-kind pieces are named for women, and the names are not just decoration. Take her newest collection, the Molly Goodnight.
Molly Goodnight was, for years, the only woman for miles on a Texas Panhandle ranch so remote her nearest neighbor lived 75 miles away. The cowhands called her the Mother of the Panhandle. And while her husband was off becoming a cattle legend, with his crews clearing the canyon of bison by the thousands, Molly was quietly doing the opposite. She talked him into bringing her the orphaned calves the hunters left behind, raised them by hand, and grew the herd that kept the Southern Plains bison from disappearing for good. Their descendants still graze in Texas today.
The way Kate tells it, Molly's power wasn't in what she built, it was in what she refused to lose. That is the whole brand in one woman. She sits next to an Emma, a Margaret Borland, a Rosa Maria, each one named for a Western woman worth remembering, and each one made exactly once.
What You'll Find at the Table
Collars, denim bolos, scarves, capes, crops, caftans, necklaces, antique jewelry, and French-sourced military jackets. Everything is one size fits most, so you're not fighting a fit, you're just deciding which story you want to wear.
Here's the catch worth knowing before you go. Everything is handmade and there's only ever one of each. When a piece sells, it's gone. So when you spot the one you like, that's the moment. The motto pretty much covers the whole feeling. No cold shoulders.
A New Chapter at The Oldenburg
Not everything Kate's restoring these days is something you can wear.
It's called The Oldenburg, a historic property in the tiny town of Oldenburg, Texas, just a few minutes from the Round Top square. The house went up in 1856, and Kate took it on right after the Spring Show, roughly 170 years later.
She isn't gutting it or smoothing away the years. She's letting it hold onto everything it's already been, every layer and every imperfection kept right where it is. The dream down the road is to open it as a place to stay, so one day you won't just shop a few minutes from 1856, you'll get to wake up inside it.
You can follow the stories unfold on instagram at @theoldenburgtx.
Visit Sunday Supper at Zapp Hall
Instagram: @wearesundaysupper
Website: wearesundaysupper.com
Zapp Hall · Round Top, Texas · zapphall.com
The Oldenburg · @theoldenburgtx
Round Top Finds Tip:
With Sunday Supper, hesitation costs you the piece. Everything is one of a kind, the good stuff moves fast, and it does not come back. See it, love it, take it home!
