Claire McCardell The designer who set women free

The life and innovative work of American fashion designer Claire McCardell get well-deserved recognition in this biography by journalist Dickinson. Born in 1905 in Maryland, McCardell moved to New York City in 1925 to attend the School of Fine and Applied Art (now the Parsons School of Design) for a course of study that included nine months in what was then the center of fashion, Paris. The revolutionary bias-cut designs of the House of Vionnet, celebrating the natural shape of a woman's body, inspired McCardell. Her style integrated naturalness with innovations like pockets, accessible zippers, and hoods in women's separates and sportswear. She pioneered the use of materials like denim in women's clothing and created the modern bathing suit. A groundbreaker in business, she became the first American woman to have her name on a label of ready-to-wear garments. Dickinson engagingly integrates McCardell's work and life with the evolution of the fashion industry and American society from the 1920s through the 1950s. Even the least fashion-conscious reader will appreciate learning about Claire McCardell's accomplishments.

Journalist Dickinson debuts with an admiring biography of American fashion designer Claire McCardell (1905--1958). After graduating from Parsons design school in New York City, McCardell apprenticed at male-owned Seventh Avenue design studios before eventually becoming the head designer at Townley Frocks, a mid-level sportswear manufacturer. An advocate for function over fashion--what "Paris unleashed every few months to keep a woman agitated and hungry and buying new clothes," Dickinson writes--she drew inspiration from everyday life to pioneer ballet flats; ready-to-wear separates; and the wrap dress. She also nearly single-handedly brought sportswear--previously restricted to "private, female-only spaces"--into public spaces. During WWII, when the New York fashion scene was cut off from French influences, McCardell seized the opportunity to design slacks for the influx of women entering factory jobs, and to provide demonstrations for women on how to repurpose fabrics that were in short supply. Throughout, Dickinson illustrates how fashion served as a mirror for sociopolitical change, with the suffragist ideals of the 19th century that influenced McCardell (the notion that "a women's freedom began with her clothes... Unencumbered bodies meant unencumbered lives") giving way to postwar conservatism as women returned to the home and Christian Dior put forth a hyperfeminized look that emphasized cinched waists and structured shoulders. Fashion aficionados won't want to miss this. (June)

The early-20th-century woman designer who revolutionized fashion--then disappeared. "She really invented sportswear, which is this country's major contribution to fashion," said Calvin Klein of McCardell in 1981. Now, thanks to Dickinson's excellent, delightfully readable biography, this extraordinary woman may finally be more widely given credit for that. In a prologue set in 1955, just three years before McCardell's untimely death at 52, we see the designer giving Betty Friedan, then "an eager young journalist," a tour of her innovations. "She'd developed leotards and leggings, brought hoodies, denim, and leather into womenswear, ushered the swimsuit into its contemporary form, included pockets in her clothes, and made the wrap dress a wardrobe staple." Though "we owe much of what hangs in our closets to Claire McCardell," writes Dickinson, it's her contemporary (and rival) Christian Dior's name we remember. Interestingly, Dior also died at 52 around the same time, but he had had the foresight to appoint a successor to manage his brand, a young fellow named Yves Saint Laurent. McCardell's failure to do so meant that her label closed down shortly after her death. "Stitching Claire McCardell's name back onto the apparel she pioneered is not merely a history lesson in provenance; it is a vital and timely reminder of a designer, and a movement, that was always about far more than clothes." McCardell's achievement was founded on unconventional choices. She chose not to have children and did not marry until she was nearly 40. She was ferociously private, rarely discussing her personal life in interviews, which makes Dickinson's deeply researched portrait all the more impressive, illuminating a whole network of women who supported each other in rigidly sexist times. One great example: During World War II, the chemical used to bleach cotton became unavailable; McCardell learned this from textile mill owner Hope Skillman, who apologized for the "dingy off-white" material she was producing as a result. "McCardell didn't think it was so bad; she saw it as a creamy, mellow color and began using it, helping establish a trend for the color now known as 'bone.'" Debut biographer Dickinson digs up buried treasure in this essential and inspiring account. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.