Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson ISBN 9781668045237, 1668045230 instant download

Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free by Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson ISBN 9781668045237, 1668045230 instant download

The riveting hidden history of Claire McCardell, the most influential fashion designer you've never heard of.
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Claire McCardell forever changed fashion—and most importantly, the lives of women. She shattered cultural norms around women's clothes, and today much of what we wear traces back to her ingenious, rebellious mind. McCardell invented ballet flats and mix-and-match separates, and she introduced wrap dresses, hoodies, leggings, denim, and more into womenswear. She tossed out corsets in favor of a comfortably elegant look and insisted on pockets, even as male designers didn't see a need for them. She made zippers easy to reach because a woman "may live alone and like it," McCardell once wrote, "but you may regret it if you wrench your arm trying to zip a back zipper into place."
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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.
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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