Hello, Beauties🌸 Today’s post, I’m remembering New York Fashion Designer Claire McCardell.
My first recollection of Claire McCardell was on one of my many visits to Manhattan with my daughter, Channing, in December 2016. While we hurried along Seventh Avenue in the Garment District on that cold and bustling Christmas season day, I noticed a plaque on the ground for Claire McCardell.
You know where I’m going with this: Just who was Claire McCardell (1905-1958)? Her name doesn’t ring a bell like many of the other earlier American Fashion Designers based in New York City. It’s worth revisiting the designer’s understated all-American style.
According to the Fashion Walk of Fame plaque, McCardell is one of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th Century. Why? The designer pioneered the American Look. Before World War II, American fashion relied on Parisian haute couture.
Claire came along during a change when women wanted independence from corporal restrictions or dictates from Paris. Her specialty was leisurewear, including playsuits and swimwear.
Ready-to-wear designers such as Norman Norrell (1900-1972), Hattie Carnegie, and Claire McCardell, among others, finally established New York as a rival fashion capital to Paris.
The homegrown designer was born in Frederick, Maryland, the eldest of four children. Claire, fascinated by fashion from a young age, moved to New York City after two years at Hood College. McCardell graduated from Parsons in 1923 with a certificate in costume design and then continued her studies in Paris.
The creative sportswear genius’s work history includes stints with Robert Turk, Townley Frocks, and Hattie Carnegie. While working for Ms. Carnegie, McCardell met Diana Vreeland (then at Harper’s Bazaar), who would become McCardell’s lifelong friend and champion.
Check out Claire’s still-on-point classic designs:
Her heavy hitters:
Awards and Recognition:
Claire designed clothes for her lifestyle, much as Chanel did before her. A McCardell quote from the Time article: “I’ve always designed things I needed myself. It just turns out that other people need them too.” Many of her pieces were created out of necessity: shivering aboard a yacht, she made a wrap in tweed, skiing with cold ears, and she designed a wool jersey hood.
In 1988, thirty years after her death, three separate retrospectives of Clair McCardell’s work were shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, F.I.T., and the Maryland Historical Society.
With the help of longtime friend and classmate Mildred Orrick, Claire completed her final sketches from her hospital bed. On the day of the show, Claire checked herself out of the hospital to personally introduce that last collection at New York’s Pierre Hotel. Claire died of terminal colon cancer at the age of 52 on March 22, 1958.
What are your thoughts on Claire’s casual and functional designs? And the use of conventional, natural fibers such as cotton, twill, gingham, denim, and jersey in a variety of classic apparel that is still fashionably on time? Let me know in the comments section.
Thank you for reading. Have a fabulous week.
