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The Designer Who Set Women Free
by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson
The riveting hidden history of feminist trailblazer Claire McCardell—the most influential fashion designer you've never heard of.
Claire McCardell forever changed American fashion. In fact, much of what we wear today can be traced back to her: ballet flats, mix-and-match separates, wrap dresses, hoodies, leggings, denim in womenswear, and more. She was compared to Albert Einstein for the prophetic original creations that she made over her three-decade career. But most importantly, she designed clothes to support a woman's independence. She tossed out corsets in favor of a comfortably elegant look. She insisted on pockets, during a time when male designers didn't see a need for them. She made zippers easy to reach because, as she said, a woman "may live alone and like it, but you may regret it if you wrench your arm trying to zip a back zipper into place."
After World War II, McCardell fought the severe, hyper-feminized silhouette that was championed by predominantly male designers. Leading the charge was Christian Dior, who favored tightly cinched waists and towering high heels. Dior claimed that he wanted to "save women from nature." McCardell, by contrast, wanted to set women free. Claire McCardell became, as the young journalist Betty Friedan called her in 1955, "The Gal Who Defied Dior." And yet it is Dior's name that we remember today.
This book tells the forgotten story of Claire McCardell and offers an unprecedented look inside a savvy mind that was steadily building an empire at a time when women rarely made it to the upper echelons of business. She was one of the first American designers to have her name carried on the clothing that she designed. McCardell defied gender expectations not just in her professional life, but her personal life as well. She was raised to be a homemaker, yet she chose to remain single until nearly forty years old and didn't have any children of her own.
As entertaining as it is enlightening, this book illuminates how Claire McCardell became a global sensation who imagined, and created, something that didn't yet fully exist: American sportswear. This book is, at its core, the story of our bodies and our rights to choose how we dress, which is a symbol of our right to choose how we live.
"[An] excellent, delightfully readable biography...Debut biographer Dickinson digs up buried treasure in this essential and inspiring account." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A terrific, well-written biography of an American original who died too young." —Library Journal (starred review)
"Fashion aficionados won't want to miss this." —Publishers Weekly
"A delightful, inspiring tale of a visionary designer. I loved it! Pockets in women's clothes? Hoodies? Zippers? We all have Claire McCardell to thank. And now, because of Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson's riveting new book, we will all know her name." —Julie Satow, New York Times bestselling author of When Women Ran Fifth Avenue
"A beautifully spun story of resilience and tenacity. Dickinson brings to life the most important and underappreciated designer of the 20th Century." —Avery Trufelman, producer and host of the Articles of Interest podcast
This information about Claire McCardell was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson is an award-winning journalist and author whose writing has been widely published in The New York Times, Harper's, The New Yorker, The Southern Review, and The Washington Post Magazine, among many others. A National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow, Dickinson's work has earned recognition in anthologies such as The Best American Essays and been awarded Maryland's prestigious Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize for literature. Dickinson lives in Baltimore with her husband and daughter.
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