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The revolutionary fashion designer credited with origin...)
The revolutionary fashion designer credited with originating "The American Look," Claire McCardell designed for the emerging active lifestyle of women in the 1940s and '50s.
She was the originator of mix-and-match separates, open-backed sundresses, and feminine denim fashion; she started the trend for ballet flats as a wartime leather-rationing measure. Spaghetti straps, brass hooks and eyes as fasteners, rivets, menswear details and fabrics: they were all started by McCardell. Her Monastic and Pop-over dresses achieved cult status, and her fashions were taken up by working women, the suburban set, and high society alike.
First published in 1956, What Shall I Wear? is a distillation of McCardell's democratic fashion philosophy and a chattily vivacious guide to looking effortlessly stylish. Mostly eschewing Paris, although she studied there and was influenced by Vionnet and Madame Gres, McCardell preferred an unadorned aesthetic; modern and minimalist, elegant and relaxed, even for evening, with wool jersey and tweed among her favorite fabrics.
What Shall I Wear? provides a glimpse into the sources of McCardell's inspiration--travel, sports, the American leisure lifestyle, and her own closet--and how she transformed them into fashion, all the while approaching design from her chosen vantage point of usefulness. A retro treat for designers and everyone who loves fashion--vintage and contemporary--and teeming with charming illustrations and still-solid advice for finding your own best look, creatively shopping on a budget, and building a real wardrobe that is chic and individual, What Shall I Wear? is a tribute to the American spirit in fashion. 7 color and 5 b/w photographs and more than 150 b/w illustrations
Claire McCardell was an American fashion designer.
Background
Claire McCardell was born on May 24, 1905 in Frederick, Maryland. She was the daughter of Adrian Leroy McCardell and Eleanor Clingan. Her father was president of the Frederick County Bank and had been a member of the state tax commission and a state senator. McCardell's interest in fashion began as a child as she watched the family dressmaker at work, an interest she pursued by creating paper dolls from figures cut from fashion magazines. Another early interest that was to influence her fashion designs was sports; as a teenaged participant so active that she was given the nickname "Kick, " she learned at firsthand what kinds of clothes were practical for active wear.
Education
After graduating from the local high school in 1923, McCardell enrolled as a student at Hood College in Frederick. After two years there, she moved to New York City to attend the Parsons School of Design (then known as the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts). While studying in New York, McCardell lived at the Three Arts Club, where she and the other residents often were recipients of French designer clothes passed along by the club's wealthy patrons. Impressed by the detailing and workmanship she saw in these couturier clothes she took advantage of the school's having a Paris branch and went there to study in 1927. In addition to attending classes, she took a part-time job tracing fashion drawings for a company that sold sketches of Paris designs. Back in New York, she completed her studies at Parsons in 1928.
Career
McCardell held a series of minor jobs including painting floral designs on lamp shades, modeling fashions at B. Altman and Company, sketching in a dress shop, and working as an assistant and designer for a knit goods manufacturer. In 1930, she was hired by Robert Turk as his assistant. Two years later, when Turk was forced to disband his house, he took her with him to Townley Frocks. A few months after the move, Turk died in a drowning accident, and McCardell was assigned to complete his designs for that season. Her success in carrying out the assignment earned her appointment as the company's designer. At the start of her designing career, McCardell's clothes simple, uncomplicated, designed for ease and comfort were considered daring and were worn principally by women in the fashion avant garde; indeed some were worn only by McCardell herself.
She was the first to wear the evening and daytime wool jersey separates that she found so easy to pack for her many trips abroad. It was not until 1938 that one of her designs, the free-flowing "Monastic" dress, captured the popular imagination. Not properly protected by copyright, it was copied freely by other manufacturers. Business losses caused by the piracy of this design, and production problems associated with it, prompted Townley's president, Henry Geiss, to close the business. McCardell was then hired by Hattie Carnegie to design "Workshop Originals" under the Carnegie label. She worked there for a year and a half, but most Carnegie customers, accustomed to more formal haute couture, did not appreciate the free, unconstructed, uncluttered lines of McCardell clothes. Next, she worked briefly for a small, low-priced house before being hired again by Henry Geiss, who, with Adolph Klein and Harry Friedman, was forming a new Townley Frocks in 1940. The partners gave her considerable leeway, and in 1942 one of her designs, a wrap-and-tie housedress called the "Popover, " featured first in Harper's Bazaar, was a huge success. More than 75, 000 Popovers were sold the first season. The next year, her "Diaper" wrap-and-tie bathing suit created a sensation. In the 1940's her husband McCardell came into her own as a top designer. Claire McCardell died on March 22, 1958 in New York City.
Achievements
Vogue called Claire McCardell a "designer for moderns. " The prestigious department store Lord and Taylor promoted her "American look. " She was among the first American designers to win name recognition, an honor previously bestowed only on French couturiers. She received the Mademoiselle Merit Award in 1943, the Coty American Fashion Critics Award in 1944, and the Neiman-Marcus Award in 1948. In 1950 she was presented the Woman's National Press Club Award by President Truman. She became a Townley partner in 1952.
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The revolutionary fashion designer credited with origin...)
Personality
Throughout her career, McCardell was an active alumna of the Parsons School, working with students as critic and consultant. In 1956 she put her feelings about fashion into words in What Shall I Wear?
Connections
During one of her trips to Europe, McCardell met Irving Drought Harris, an architect; they were married on Mar. 10, 1943.
