If you were to tell anyone in the UK that they were 'gussied up' you would probably get back a blank stare - the term is little known there. In the USA you might get a less welcome response, as it is at best a back-handed compliment, referring as it does to a somewhat lurid 'trying too hard' appearance.
It would be nice at this juncture to be able to point to some grande dame famous for her kitsch apparel who was the source of the expression. Sadly, the plot is thicker than that and this phrase's origin is uncertain. There are some clues though, so I'll itemize the evidence and leave you to make what you can of it.
First, the word 'gussie'. This was first used in Australia in the early 20th century as a name for a foppish dandy. The Australian feminist novelist Miles Franklin used it in her best-known work My Brilliant Career, 1901, to describe a soppy Lothario to whom she gives the unambiguous but mocking name of Everard Grey:
"I'll show him [Everard] I think no more of him than of the caterpillars on the old tree there. I'm not a booby that will fall in love with every gussie I see. I hate and detest men!"
'Gussie' was a contraction of the name Augustus, which was the generic name for Roman emperors. In some contexts the name might conjure up thoughts of imperial grandeur, but not so here. It wouldn't have been a name commonly given to horny-handed Australian cobbers and 'gussie' was clearly meant to denote effeminacy, just as 'jessie' does now in Australia and the UK. The New Zealand lexicographer Sidney Baker helpfully removes the need for speculation by defining the word in the Popular Dictionary of Australian Slang, 1941:
http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/gussied-up.html
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