Claire McCardell

Claire McCardell is a central figure in modern American sportswear. When Time magazine featured McCardell on the cover (May 2, 1955), she was described as “the person who understands best how American women want to look.” Her clothing had a casual, yet functional ease. “I like buttons to button, buckles to buckle, sashes to tie,” she said.

McCardell studied at Parsons School of Design in New York. She spent most of her career at Townley Frocks, where she became head designer in 1932. She left briefly to design for Hattie Carnegie, but her simple designs were not suited to the Carnegie aesthetic. She returned to Townley and was the company’s chief designer until her death in 1958 at the age of 52.

The “Monastic” dress is perhaps McCardell’s most lauded early design. Debuting in 1938, it was seemingly formless, but the wearer had only to add a belt to define the waist and achieve a flattering silhouette. In 1942, McCardell debuted her familiar “Popover” dress, a simple denim wrap, to be worn by practical women during the war years. It became a staple of her collections—varying in length or pattern, and morphing from playful, casual cottons to fine silks for evening. She also wanted clothing to be active and fun, as evidenced by her playwear—cotton rompers, mix-and-match separates, and diaper-style bathing suits.

McCardell followed many of the basic lines of the postwar New Look, but stripped them of their rigidity and formality. A great many of her designs emphasize the waist—by means of a belt, however, not a girdle—and many have full skirts (yet do not require a petticoat). McCardell did not dictate style. Often her designs could be worn a number of ways. Sashes or spaghetti-string ties, for instance, could be styled according to the wearer’s preference. McCardell rather encouraged such individuality.

McCardell’s fashions were not conceived to be put on “a pedestal in the Museum of Modern Art.” As she put it: “Clothes are for real live women . . . They are made to be worn, to be lived in.” Yet, in museums and on pedestals they now reside, perhaps because the humble McCardell still seems eminently modern.