Thursday, August 28, 2025

Stylish Read: "Claire McCardell—The Designer Who Set Women Free"


If you've been a reader here for a while, you may have noticed I mention Claire McCardell a lot. She was my fashion godmother, the woman whose 1956 book, "What Shall I Wear?" hit me wherever life-long love goes to live. I was 14. Although she was not alone, she was by far the most successful and best known designer whose work established the American Look. 


She died barely two years later. Her business was shuttered; her label no longer produced. Over time if you knew of Claire McCardell, well, you knew. Otherwise she was lost to time. Many American designers have cited her as an influence—from Donna Karan to Isaac Mizrahi to Tory Burch. If you think about it, this woman, so full of life and conviction that women deserve to be happy and comfortable in their clothes, brought Paris to its knees. No longer do the couturiers dictate what we wear—and believe me they once did—but the American Look is cherished by women all over the world.


Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson has written a life of Claire McCardell that reads like a novel. Far from being a linear biography, she sets the mood of the era, from Claire's birth in 1906 to an upper middle class Virginia family, to her schooling and early struggles as a designer in New York City, to her battles establishing herself and her work in the Depression-era '30s, to ultimate success in the '40s and even greater success in the 1950s as women themselves began to adapt to their modern roles in society. The obvious tragedy is that Claire herself did not live on, the big question being what else could she have come up with?

This book is so good I only want to write enough to entice you to read. It will be a fun read (like a novel, remember?). You will really get to know this spirited, determined woman who succeeded beyond what she could have possibly dreamed. Every time you put on a pair of ballet flats or pedal pushers or wrap dress or denim-something or most-comfortable-thing-you-own you will know who to thank.