When looking for the origin or root of "gussy up" it doesn't really have any solid information.
This site
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-gus1.htm
gave me the most background on locations of where this might have originated. Here is the quote I found:

Both the OED and Professor Jonathan Lighter (in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang) point tentatively to an earlier use of Gussy or Gussie as a term for an effeminate or weak person. This appeared in the US at the end of the nineteenth century. The same word was used in Australia from about the same period to describe a male homosexual. In both cases, the word was usually written with an initial capital letter, which suggests it came from the proper name Augustus, being the sort of name that authors associated with an effete or weak-willed man (think of P G Wodehouse’s wonderful invention of Gussie Fink-Nottle, who wasn’t gay but otherwise fitted the stereotype).
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g263/juliamaas/kac-bunnyLO.jpg

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