My colleague Hamish Bowles received the Eleanor Lambert Award at the CFDA Awards.
Lambert was the founder of the CFDA and you quote her in your book.
Hawes saw that it was time for Americans to have their own legend.
Side buttoned jersey dress by Claire McCardell.
She moved to Paris to learn how to become a couturier.
She went back to New York, she opened her house, and she did not copy Paris.
Still, she was the first American design star.
Side buttoned jersey dress by Claire McCardell.
She believed in what she believed in.
She liked a full skirt.
She liked clothes that you could move in, whether thats what was happening in Paris or not.
The model on the stairs wears a muslin dinner dress by Elizabeth Hawes.
But she was a made-to-order designer.
Claire McCardell was a ready-to-wear designer.
So that was her starting point.
She was a real problem-solving designer.
Thats what drove her.
Why couldnt womens clothes be both tender and tough?
What were some of the wardrobe problems that McCardell solved?
She really hated a dress that you had to fasten up the back.
Youre not going to have your husband or your ladies made there to zip you up.
She didnt like shoulder pads.
She took those out because she liked the natural form.
She didnt like a lot of foundation garments.
And she liked clothes that she would describe as clothes that perform.
She really liked, for example, these spaghetti ties.
This is how you better wear it.
Lets think about the 2020s.
Or do you hear your friends talk about that?
When you go out shopping, what are you frustrated about?
I feel like theres a lot of sameness, almost airlessness, right now.
Or you get this boho chic extreme, like were seeing now with Chloe.
And I dont think thats how most women want to dress either.
I think they want something thats easy but also satisfying, that you might have an emotional connection to.
The French legend is remarkably durable.
It dates to Louis XIV, and its still around.
It was Valerie Steele who said that Paris is like Tinker Bell.
If everyone believes really hard that Paris is great, then Paris will continue to be great.
I would say Paris is not better.
So its this very restrictive, exclusive system.
I think thats an origin story that is very compelling and that more attention should be paid to.
I mean, what system would you rather be part of?
Its a different story.
Now we have plenty of ease.
Maybe a better way of looking at it is that they were redefining what fashion could be.
I think that shows that theres a hunger for this kind of fashion.
There was no second city.
New York was a manufacturing center.
That this idea was turned on its head in just four years is remarkable.
Thats how she did it.
I think that lesson still applies.
You could say that Hawes and McCardell were responsible for one of fashions major all-time vibe shifts.
Where do you think the next one could come from?
For something similar today, maybe we need to recognize designers from the Global South.
You know, fashion has had this very Western influence, the Western focus, for centuries.
Thats not where population growth is.
Talk a little bit about researching and writing the book.
It was really immersing myself in those primary sources.
I think I read every issue of WWD from 1930 to 1949 and it was fascinating.
The September 1940 issues are the first ones that have only American fashion.
Before that, the focus on Paris was really astonishing.
Like almost everything in life, these womens successes were about timing, right?
Hawes and McCardell saw their opening, and they really took it.
Lets play the game of who would play these women if the story made it to the screen.
I would love to see the Empresses on the small screen.
Its filled with roles for actresses in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s.
And its not about them and the men in their lives.
Its about their work, which they really value.
Obviously, a huge role would be Eleanor Lambert.
Reese Witherspoon might work.
Diana Vreeland, thats another huge role.
Then Elizabeth Hawes, thats a great character as well for a dark haired actress.
Then I thought Kirsten Dunst could be the photographer Louise Dahl Wolf.
I could see her playing that role.
Clara McCardelle was this all-American, tall, rangy, blue-eyed blonde.
Shes a redhead, but maybe Jessica Chastain or maybe Amy Adams, another redhead?
What kind of responses have you heard from your readers?
One person asked me, and I kind of took this as a backhanded compliment…
Some said, why did they use the contemporary image on the cover?
You know, this photo appeared in the January 1, 1950 issue ofVogue.
Its clothes that were made in the early 1940s.
I think its interesting that someone thought they were contemporary clothes.
I had that same thought earlier this week.
I thought to myself, this looks so modern, its crazy.
Its basically leggings and a leotard and a little dress over it.
If the hair and the makeup were different, absolutely you could wear these today.
And the handbags, I love those handbags.
Theyre actually by an American brand called Phelps.
They were based in Washington Square, and they used all of these antique military insignia on their bags.
Someone should revive Phelps.
It was a husband and wife team.
And they first had this little workshop on Washington Square.
They ended up moving to like Philly or something, with a bigger factory.
It was very much in line with Claire McCardell, very American, nothing Parisian.
Yeah, the Betty Grable/Ginger Rogers paradigm, as I called it.
No, there are these flat little boots that Claire McCardell made with Capezio.
Because shoes were the only item of clothing that were rationed in the US during the war.
But there was this weird loophole for ballet slippers, which McCardell realized.
That is really ingenious.
She saw a loophole and she exploited it.
