← Dressed: The History of Fashion
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- [00:00]
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- [00:31]
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On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call, message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone Dress listeners Bonjour from Paris.
- [01:03]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, we are currently on our annual summer hiatus from the show as we conduct our summer fashion history tours of the City of Lights. But worry not, we will be back in August with brand new content dedicated to all of the exciting fashion history exhibitions and other behind the scenes experiences we have encountered while here.
- [01:21]
April Callahan
Until then, please enjoy this episode from the Dressed archive of over 500 past shows.
- [01:27]
Cassie Zachary
The History of Fashion is a production of dress media.
- [01:35]
With over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed.
- [01:42]
April Callahan
Welcome to Dressed the History of Fashion, a podcast that explores the who, what, when of why we wear. We are friends, fashion historians and your.
- [01:50]
Cassie Zachary
Hosts Cassie Zachary and April Callahan.
- [02:04]
Dress listeners. Cassidy and I are super excited about this week's episodes. And I say episodes plural as this will be a two parter this week. A very long overdue two parter. I must say for for 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 seasons now, I have been promising you all this episode and as many of you know, Cass and I took a tiny little break for a bit while she was on maternity leave and I. Well, I just took a much needed break and while I was off I kind of started to feel this itch that I needed to scratch. I was really dying to dive headfirst into some sort of a research rabbit hole and I thought who better to focus on than one of the most important fashion designers of all time and definitely one of the most influential in.
- [02:52]
April Callahan
The history of American fashion, hands down. I mean, April is of course speaking of the fashion phenom and iconoclast Claire McCardell. As fashion historian Valerie still has written, quote, it is impossible to imagine a Calvin Klein or a Donna Karan or a Marc Jacobs had there not first been Claire McCardell. End quote. And Claire's work is often cited as the epitome of that so called American look, which emphasized and continues to emphasize minimalism, comfort, practicality. Claire embraced humble fabric. She had these woody solutions for closures and fits, as we'll discuss. And all her clothes were mass produced at a relatively accessible price point during the 30s, 40s and 50s. And frankly, her work stunned the American fashion industry who had, in the words of Adolf Klein, who was her boss at the time, never seen all, quote, anything like the things Claire dreamed up. And her work remains so seminal that it has been said she, quote, redesigned both the style and national identity of modern American women.
- [03:56]
Cassie Zachary
I mean, that's, that's no pressure there. Claire and listeners, with all of that praise and all of those accolades, awards and even a little bit of fame that came Claire's way mid career, it may come as a bit of a surprise that early on she struggled desperately. You could say she was a bit of a square peg trying to fit into the very well established round hole of American fashion. But before we get to that, let's learn a little bit more about Claire herself and her path to becoming as feminist author and activist Betty Frieden dubbed her, quote, the girl who defied Dior.
- [04:33]
April Callahan
So Claire was born in 1905 in Frederick, Maryland into a well connected upper middle class family. And so not only was her father, Adrian Leroy McArdle, a bank president, he was also a Maryland state senator. And her mother, Eleanor Clingan McArdle, was a Southern belle whose first rate education served her well as a politician's wife. And her love of learning was actually passed down to her children, which included Claire. And then Claire had three brothers.
- [05:01]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, and like many women of the era who could afford to do so, Eleanor McArdle employed a private dressmaker and she employed her to reproduce and adapt the latest looks from French and American fashion magazines, which arrived like clockwork to the McArdle household. And despite being considered somewhat of a tomboy by her family, who nicknamed her Kick, Claire also loved fashion and she devoured her mother's fashion magazines voraciously. And it's also been written that she sat for countless hours at the side of her mother's dressmaker, whose name was Annie Kugel, and she watched Annie work and she soaked up all of this knowledge about garment design and construction, just like A little sponge.
- [05:45]
April Callahan
And like many other great designers before her, Claire's first efforts trying her hand at fashion design were for her paper dolls. So by the time she was a teenager, she had graduated to, like, stealing pieces from her family's closets and then, like, taking them apart and reworking them to make them better. You know? I mean, I wonder how that went over with her mother.
- [06:06]
Cassie Zachary
Right? Can you imagine?
- [06:07]
April Callahan
I know we can only wonder if this was done with or without prior knowledge and permission. I'm gonna guess not. Although maybe her mom gave her hand me down garments that she no longer wore.
- [06:18]
Cassie Zachary
I'm sure infuriated her brothers, though. Yeah, your pants are different now.
- [06:23]
April Callahan
Yeah.
- [06:25]
Cassie Zachary
So, upon her graduation from high school, it was Claire's dream to move to New York City to attend the School of Applied and Fine Arts to study in their costume illustration and construction program. Her father, however, had other ideas. He was rather unyielding in his demand that his teenage daughter remain at home and begin her studies, at least at the local community college. So she did. And there Claire took classes in the Home EC department. Home economics, of course. And unsurprisingly, she excelled in the sewing and pattern making classes. But apparently, Cass, she was a complete disaster when it came to cooking and chemistry.
- [07:06]
April Callahan
Yeah. And it seems that traditional academics were not necessarily Claire's strong suit. Even after her father finally gave in and allowed her to move to New York City to study at what would later become Parsons, she still struggled academically. So much so that she had to plead her case with the administration to let her study abroad in Paris her sophomore year. Her grades apparently had been poor her freshman year, but her design work showed promise, and the school allowed her to take part in the Paris program.
- [07:34]
Cassie Zachary
And, listeners, don't quote me on this, but I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that they gave her permission to go only if she was on academic probation of some sort. So she kind of always had that hanging over her head. And Paris turned out to be a dream for Claire, who discovered that the haute couture houses often sold off their unsold samples at steep discounts at the end of the season. And this particularly fascinated her in terms of the von designs that she could get her hands on. Yeah, I know. I would feel the same about that, I think. So, basically, she could purchase these couture garments for just a fraction of their value and then deconstruct them to deepen her understanding of pattern making and construction techniques.
- [08:22]
April Callahan
And this exploration was actually something that she had started in New York the year Prior, I mean, it was not uncommon for female students during the 20s and 30s to room an all female boarding houses which were sometimes run by charitable or cultural institutions. And in Claire's case, she roomed at the lodgings of the 3 Arts Club with fellow fashion design students Josette Walker and Mildred Boykin, who would later marry to become Mildred Oric. And the three women actually became fast friends and would all go on to make their individual mark on American fashion as designers and dress listeners. Please keep that name, Mildred Oric tucked in the back of your head because she will come up later again in the context of McCardell's career and life.
- [09:05]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, she certainly will. They were lifelong friends after all. But back to what you were saying, Cass, about Claire's endeavors in deconstructing couture garments in New York. Apparently many of the well heeled women who belonged to or supported the 3 Arts Club had a habit of offering their past season couture garments to the design students for a mere pittance. And Claire, Josette and Mildred were able to stick snag pieces of couture for as little as $5 at the time. This would be something like $75 today, adjusted for inflation. So I'm, you know, 1% of their purchase price, something like that. You know, if only we had that fashion history time machine that we always joke about, we could go back and snag some too.
- [09:52]
April Callahan
I know one can dream. So for Claire, you know, this opportunity to study garments from the inside out and to quite literally dissect, dissect them proved invaluable. And she said of her examination of VNA pieces in particular that at the time she was, quote, learning important things. The way clothes worked, the way they felt, where they fastened, end quote. And one would think that this firsthand knowledge of European couture techniques would have prepared her to succeed when she entered the job market, which was around 1927 or 1928. But again, this was also not quite the case.
- [10:27]
Cassie Zachary
Yep, for the next year or so, Claire picked up odd fashion jobs here and there and time and time again was let go, AKA fired. What did stick, however, was a job working as a fit model for the department store Bea Altman. Unpretentious and a natural beauty with a live athletic frame, she was apparently very well liked at B. Altman by industry professionals and her fellow fit models alike. However, a career as a model was not the fashion industry position she desired. She wanted to design and design she did. More on that after this brief break from a word from our sponsors.
- [11:12]
April Callahan
Welcome back, dress listeners. So Claire's big industry break came when she was hired by Robert Turk as his assistant in 1929. And not long into her tenure with Turk, he was approached by the design manufacturing house Townley Frock to buy what was then a struggling independent design company. And one of his stipulations for the sale was that as the head designer for Townley, he would be allowed to bring his assistant, who was Claire. And Turk saw his young assistant's potential and the two really worked closely together until this freak boating accident. April claimed Turk's life in 1932. Sadly, and following Turk's death, Townley asked the then 27 year old McArdle to try her hand at completing his last unfinished collection on her own, which she did apparently well, as she was permanently hired on as Turk's replacement soon thereafter.
- [12:02]
Cassie Zachary
And just a little brief side note here, and I won't belabor this point because we have talked about it so much on the show already, but for anyone just joining us who may have missed it in the past, we are still firmly in the 1930s here. And in terms of American fashion design, it was kind of moda operandi that American designers and design firms were looking to Paris for inspiration. And even illicit copying was considered fair game by many in the industry. So creating looks inspired by the latest Parisian couture was what was expected of Claire at this time. And to spur her along, Townley sent Claire twice a year to Europe, especially to Paris, to find inspiration and gather the pulse of European fashion. And this was pretty much standard practice at the time within the American fashion industry. And often Claire's first former classmates, Josette and Mildred, were tasked with the exact same mission in their own jobs. And the three friends occasionally accompany each other on the steamership trips they took across the Atlantic and back.
- [13:06]
April Callahan
That sounds so fun and romantic. Even though. I know, I'm sorry, I think we should go.
- [13:09]
Cassie Zachary
I think we should go on one of those. We should go on one of Dandy's trips.
- [13:13]
April Callahan
Dandy Wellington past dress guest has one coming up. Dress listeners. So actually check it out. The vintage voyage, I believe so. Once on European soil, Claire had a little latitude in her travels and frequently took detours off the usual fashion circuit of London and Paris and ventured to skiing and sporting destinations where she was often enamored more by the styles of regional dress she saw than the haute couture offerings and the salons of famed designers. So upon implementing some of these traditional design inspirations back home for the Townley Frocks label, Claire often found herself butting heads with company executives who yearn for her to stick to the, you know, established formula of copying or adapting the silhouette of European couture. And actually, if you want to learn more about that dress, listeners, you can check out our episode from last year that was on the rise of the American Designer. Because Claire was in no way alone in her frustration with the American fashion industry's reliance on the cachet of the French haute couture to sell designs, others very much shared her desire to break free from its vice grip. And that included, of course, past dress guest subjects, including Ethel Traphagen and Elizabeth Hawes, among many, many others.
- [14:23]
Cassie Zachary
As her biographers, Kola Johann and Nancy Neff have acknowledged. Quote, McArdle knew that American women led quite different lives from their European counterparts and truly believed that only an American designer could offer them a truly American style. From her earliest days As a designer, McCardell was actively formulating and promoting the pared down, no nonsense aesthetic she felt was already inherently part of American culture. Despite her enthusiasm, however, nearly at every juncture of her career, the avant garde visionary often encountered a gap between what she saw as style and what the marketplace promoted as fashion.
- [15:02]
April Callahan
And Claire's iconoclastic views on style finally paid off in 1938, which is six years into her tenure at Townley Frocks. This is when she created, hands down, one of her most famous designs to this day, and that is McCardell's monastic dress, which at this point is the stuff of fashion legend. April.
- [15:20]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, and apparently the dress itself was never actually intended for Townley. It was Claire's creation for herself. And the story has it that it was based on a Description by a McArdle family member of what a traditional Algerian garment they had seen looked like. It was described to her as having an undefined waist and that the front and the back panels of the garment were indistinguishable from each other. So basically, the front looked like the back and the back looked like the front. So Claire conjured up her own interpretation of this garment based on the description, and she realized it in a red schlubby wool. And apparently Claire was standing at a coffee stand on the street wearing this red dress, and a buyer from the department store, Best and company approached her and asked her where she got her highly unusual design.
- [16:16]
April Callahan
Yeah, and I mean, at this time, this dress was utterly unique and as Claire herself describes it, not unique to history. So she describes the dress as, quote, a flowing robe like design that the wearer shaped to her own Waistline with a sash or belt. The dress first appeared in 1938, yet how can I say that it appeared hundreds of years ago? Its design is classic. In 1938 it had shoulder pads and was very full. And April kind of already attested to this. But this dress essentially had no shape, it had no waistline. It fell from the shoulders, very full and tent like before. It was shaped to the wearer's body by the way of a belt or a sash. And we just love this design because not only is it flattering, but it's flattering to like all kinds of body types. Right. And remember, the silhouette was loosely inspired by a traditional Algerian garment. And that's what she meant when she says that the design's hundreds of years old. I would wager her take on it was entirely new. April, I don't know what you think. And then I'm also curious about the nickname monastic. Maybe it's because it relates to like the conservative nature of monastic dress. I don't know.
- [17:21]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And that wasn't the original name of the dress. The original name of the dress was the nada frock. Apparently that's what Best and company called it when they ordered a hundred copies more or less immediately as soon as the buyer saw Claire and her red version. And the first hundred dresses that they ordered apparently sold out in 24 hours. So they very quickly placed additional orders for the dress and other colorways and other fabrics. And time and time again, this not a frock as it was known then and then later known as the monastic dress, it sold out as soon as the inventory hits the store. So Best and company decided to capitalize on this demand. They even began offering pre sales of the model, which was priced at $30 at the time. Adjusted for inflation today, this would be about $600. So this was a ready to wear dress that wasn't exactly cheap, but neither was it in the very steep price ranges of haute couture designs which dominated fashion magazines during this era. So this, the popularity of this dress really proves that there was this market in the US at the time for this higher end of mid range fashion. You know, it, it, this made the monastic dress a runaway hit for Townley.
- [18:41]
April Callahan
And quite curiously, the monastic dress was also the cause of Townley frock's demise, which is super interesting. So the runaway success of the not a frock or monastic dress, you know, the fashion industry really stood at attention. And McCardell's biographers described this quote unquote sensation that the design ins and Quoting. A dress manufacturer is exclaiming, drop everything. There's a girl up the street making a dress with no back, no front, no waistline, and my God, no bus darts.
- [19:11]
Cassie Zachary
The shock or the horror, I don't know. Everyone loved it, though. Maybe the manufacturers were horrified. Yeah.
- [19:17]
April Callahan
The stark simplicity of Mercardo's designs was based on its draping technique, which was, with minimal examination, pretty easy to replicate.
- [19:26]
Cassie Zachary
Mm. So copying not only a norm with the industry at this time, but also kind of a mainstay within the American fashion trade. Countless companies knocked off McCardell's design for the monastic dress, and very tenaciously, Townley Frocks went after these copyists. But in the process of doing so, they accumulated so many legal fees that the firm went bankrupt before the year. So and so crazy. I know this. This single dress design was both the manufacturer's boon and simultaneously, it's bane.
- [20:02]
April Callahan
So, needless to say, this wildly successful designer, Claire, was now without a job, which is crazy, but she was now this known entity, thanks in part to not only her runaway hit with the monastic dress, but also her first place win for fashion design at the 1939 World's First Fair, which had been held in New York City. So it wasn't long before other design firms came calling. But it would actually be Hattie Carnegie who won out over Claire's other professional suitors with an offer for Claire to come on board as one of Hattie's many in house designers. And Hattie Carnegie maybe deserves her own episode of Dress. I mean, her namesake company, as you know, April, was one of the first established American fashion brands of note. And the business model at Hattie Carnegie was based entirely on its namesake, functioning not so much as a designer, but more of an artistic director of sorts. She very much oversaw the designs of other designers that she hired, which included some of the biggest names in American fashion design, such as Norman Norell, Muriel King, Claire McCardell, who are hired as full time staff or freelancers.
- [21:06]
Cassie Zachary
So Carnegie and McArdle clashed during Claire's tenure there. Forever. The minimalist Claire's sake aesthetic was deemed too tame, too unadorned by her boss, whose taste ran more akin to elaborate Parisian fashion trends. You know, after all, another segment of Hattie Carnegie's business was actually importing haute couture models realized in France, and then advertising them as exclusive offerings in her boutiques. And this was a way to get customers in the door to buy additional products. So While Carnegie and McArdle quibbled over design directions, the movers and Shakers in American fashion were actually fans of McCardell's work for Carnegie and including one Diana Vreeland, who is apparently so impressed with a model that Claire designed, which she purchased, that she personally asked to meet the designer and dress listeners.
- [21:59]
April Callahan
April and I are so happy to report that an example of this dress that Diana ordered is actually in the collection of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City.
- [22:09]
Cassie Zachary
City.
- [22:09]
April Callahan
And the CI actually provides this wonderfully whimsical description of the long brown and white striped silk dress that says, quote, only a magician with a quick, twisting, snapping, enveloping legerdemond could make this McArdle dress. And dress listeners, not only did April have to tell me how to pronounce that, I also had to look up what legerdemond meant, which is a skillful use of one's hands when conjuring tricks, which is actually quite a lovely term. And the caption continues, on the hanger, it is limp, amorphous and trailing. On the body, it traces the voluptuous peregrination, or, I guess what is a journey of a madame. Gray bodice, but not one that is fixed into position or held forever for the couture client. Rather, the McArdle is ready to wear and adaptable to a myriad of body types and proportions. The striped silk reinforces the curlicues and corkscrews of the bodice and accentuates the columnar skirt. The crisscross bodice is accomplished by two pieces of fabric contingent on the body, but with the effect of a perfectly contrived origami. So, again, this is, I. I think an otherwise shapeless dress is geniusly shaped to the wearer's bodies with the use of sashes, which in this case are an extension of sashes that are used to define the bust line of this particular dress.
- [23:26]
Cassie Zachary
And the fact that McCardell's designs came alive once inhabited by the human form has been noted time and time again because on a hangar, they belie very little of their construction genius. Diana Vreeland even went so far as to call one time appreciatively so. She called them pathetic.
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April Callahan
Deceptively pathetic.
- [23:51]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah. The quote, unquote Simplicity of McArdle's work is often deceptive. Exactly as you just said. You know, there are these very complex geometries that are frequently disguised by the garment. Soft drape. And again, quoting Valerie Steele here, quote, McCardell was a realist, not an artist or an architect of fashion. Compared to the more lavish and formal creations of the Paris couture. McCardell's clothes were simple, frugal, humble, easy to make and easy to wear. They were not, however, necessarily easy to design. End quote.
- [24:27]
April Callahan
McCardell's time at Hattie Carnegie came to a close after just two years. And it's also around the same time that she met her future husband. So on one of her frequent trips across the Atlantic, she became friendly with a fellow passenger by the name of Irving Draught Harris, an architect originally from Texas, who had made a name for himself on the New York social scene. So he had actually went through a much publicized divorce at the time, which meant that he and Claire apparently dated somewhat clandestinely for years before they wed. The two knew that Irving's past marriage would not be well received by Claire's father, and thus Irving apparently did not meet Claire's family until they had been an item for years. By that time, they'd even acquired a farm property together, where they spent holidays and weekends.
- [25:19]
Cassie Zachary
Professionally. After leaving Hattie Carnegie, Claire did a short stint at a company called Winsome before a chance meeting in an elevator looped the course of her career back full circle. Claire's former employer, Townley Frocks, had been relaunched by its owner, Howard Geiss, and he was in need of a head designer. And Howard was riding in an elevator one day in the fashion district with his production manager, Adolph Klein, when they happened to encounter McCardell. So going to bat for McArdle against Guy's objections, Klein advocated hard for her reinstatement as the lead designer. And Claire was open to this arrangement, but with some caveats. Despite working for Guy for years previously, their relationship had always been contentious. Geist frequently nixed McCardell's more avant garde designs, labeling them unsalable. And to agree to this new offer from Townley for Claire this go round was going to need to be different.
- [26:18]
April Callahan
Yeah, and actually, in the McArdle family archives, there's this prophetic memorandum written on the back of a handwritten phone message. And it reads, Claire McCardell clothes will all carry a C. McCardell label. They will be produced as the sample is made. If you do not like the way the sample is made, buy something you do like. No changes. So Claire was basically now in a place where she could command concessions from potential employers. And one such demand she made was for her name to appear on the Townly label. And while this is certainly the accepted norm today, at the time this was highly unusual because countless American designers really toiled anonymously behind manufacturers labels for many, many years. This was the status Quo. And their efforts were unacknowledged publicly. And Claire would be a really early exception to this industry standard practice.
- [27:07]
Cassie Zachary
While Geiss initially balked at Claire's demand to have her name on the label, so six months into her new term of employment, he gave in. After prolonged pressure applied by Klein, who functioned as sort of an intermediary between the opinionated owner Geis and an equally obstinate McArdle, Geis was also now banned from the design studio cast on the basis that his past visits unfailingly resulted in unsolicited design demands. Conflict and strife.
- [27:38]
April Callahan
I like her.
- [27:39]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, yeah. I like Klein too for sticking up for her. And really, Klein's gamble paid off because under this new arrangement, Claire McCardell flourished.
- [27:48]
April Callahan
So now she, you know, we're looking at her having unparalleled freedoms. And McCardell first redesigned the Townley offices and showrooms to come in line with her unique brand of American minimalism. So walls were now painted black, navy beige and stark white. The flooring was replaced with glossy black black linoleum, the perfect complement to the striking modernity of McCardell's designs. And in an era when the interiors of most American fashion brands embrace this sort of pastel boudoir Look. Have you. McCardell's statement was loud and clear. Moving forward, her modernist vision for Townley was to reign supreme.
- [28:25]
Cassie Zachary
Claire defined her own design lexicon into what she termed McCardellisms, or signature elements of her design philosophy. These included her use of unpretentious, humble fabrics, including denim, jersey knits, ginghams, plaids and stain proofed cottons. Given the ready to wear nature of her clothes, fitting individual bodies was always a concern for Claire. And to solve the question of unique figure types, she religiously employed sashes, wraps and spaghetti ties so the wearer could shape the garment to their body at will. As we have already touched upon, closures for her garments were somewhat of an appearance session for Claire, who also famously used metal hooks and eyes and zippers as design elements, highlighting their appearance rather than hiding them.
- [29:15]
April Callahan
Oh yes, April. And buttons. She loved buttons. And she loved to call attention to the cut and line of her designs by using them. They were at once practical and decorative. So one of my all time favorite McArdle garments, which uses several of her McCardellisms all at once, is this wonderful playsuit. It's from circa 1950 and it's in the Costume Institute at the Met. It's one piece, it's realized, in this lovely buttercup yellow linen. It has a halter neck and mid thigh shorts, and the bodice loops behind the neck to form the halter, and it crosses high at the neck and the front, then buttons down the side to close. And Claire selected these little wooden ball buttons. And while the buttons at the side of the bodice serve as a practice tactical purpose, as a closure, she also elected to extend the row buttons down the side seam of the shorts as a form of adornment. And this simple spaghetti tie shapes the playsuit at the waist.
- [30:10]
Cassie Zachary
Yes, and I mean, this is so classic McCardell. You know, her clothes are always simple but quite smart. And this covetable balance between the practical and the playful. And once you get an understanding of her quote, unquote McArdelisms, you can spot her designs right away. And Cass, I'm glad you brought up that playsuit as an example. It's not quite swimwear, but it's firmly in this category of sportswear. And Claire believed in designing clothes that, quote, solved problems. She said, quote, men are free of the clothes problem. Why shouldn't I follow their example? And a playsuit like the one you just described, Cass, might be the perfect ensemble to wear to an active summer picnic or a backyard barbecue in lieu of a dress. And Claire herself was a lifelong sports enthusiast and firmly believed a woman's wardrobe needed to fit her lifestyle, not the inverse.
- [31:05]
April Callahan
And this was something actually of a uniquely American philosophy. I mean, the emphasis placed on the intersection of chic with comfort and practicality, on the American look. Claire once said of her sportswear designs, quote, for me, it is American. What looks and feels like America. Its freedom, its democracy, its casualness. It's good health. Clothes can say all that. End quote.
- [31:27]
Cassie Zachary
One of my personal favorite McCardell ensembles, cast, is also at the Costume Institute. It is a dark denim number, and it's actually a little three piece situation. It has a below the knee skirt with a fitted waistband and has really deep pockets at each hip. We know this because Claire used another McCartalism, double rows of contrasting top stitching to trace the outline of the pocket. So their shape is plainly outlined. And this also functions as a form of embellishment. The skirt itself closes down the center front with six cream buttons. And it could be worn on its own with a sweater or something else or a blouse, or it could be paired with either of the two tops, which, which match. There was a midriff revealing halter top that reveals the back, but in the front, it's scooped around just around the neck, above the collarbone, and it closes in the front with a thick, single white button just above the navel. So it's very demure in the front, but very sexy in the back.
- [32:28]
April Callahan
And maybe sexy wasn't quite appropriate for the time of day or the particular occasion, which is why this set came with an additional top. Again, it's in the same dark denim, but this one was more in the form of a boxy top with short sleeves and a collar which transitioned into a V neckline. And this distinctive treatment at the neckline was emphasized once again with her signature double rows of top stitching.
- [32:50]
Cassie Zachary
The interchangeability of this ensemble is McArdle through and through. Not only was she an early proponent of separates, she also created capsule collections of five to seven staple pieces and promoted them as perfect for not only travel, but everyday wear. Many of her popular designs were again offered season and season again. And this was something that was unheard of in the fashion industry. You know, manufacturers were really trying to get completely new models out each season. So of the timeless nature of her designs, Claire once remarked, quote, you can take a dress of mine that you bought 10 years ago, lower the hem, make a few accessory changes, and wear it today, and it will still look good.
- [33:33]
April Callahan
I mean, it's so funny because she's saying 10 years ago. And I'm thinking, how about 75 years ago? Because, you know, Claire's designs really remain fresh and modern, even at this very. I want all of them. I would wear all of them. And, you know, this is why they are now also highly collectible.
- [33:51]
Cassie Zachary
Yeah, well, you are not alone in that desire cast, because just the other day, past dressed guest Jesus Herrera and I were talking about McCardell, and she was saying that she's on the hunt for original McCardell's, and I was like, yeah, good luck with that.
- [34:07]
April Callahan
Let us know how that goes. Please share.
- [34:11]
Cassie Zachary
You know, the best examples of her work are tucked away in museum collections, or if they are up for sale on the vintage market, they command prices that probably exceed what they sold for when they were new, if you adjust for inflation. You know, just one example that I can point out is there is a supremely good example of McArdle up for auction right now on firstdibs.com and it's this tonal gray striped cotton that. That she's mitered together to kind of like create those chevron shapes. It has a sort of like a turned shawl or sailor collar in the front, and the price tag attached to this is nearly a whopping $6,000. And just to point out that that is not a fantasy price. Someone actually has that dress on hold right now.
- [34:59]
April Callahan
So yeah, I believe it. Highly, highly covetable collector's items. And fret not dress listeners, while that McArdle might not be coming your way anytime soon, what is coming your way later this week is part two of this episode because April and I have really only covered her early career up to 1940 at this point. So on Thursday we are going to delve into her work during the years of World War II and discuss many of her other signature designs, including her swimwear, the popover dress, and her thoughts on the prevalence of Dior's new look.
- [35:29]
Cassie Zachary
That does it for us today. Dress listeners, may you consider where chic comfort resides in your closet. Next time you get dressed.
- [35:40]
Please head to restpodcast on Instagram or Rest Podcast without the underscore on Facebook to check out the visual content associated with each week's episodes.
- [35:51]
Dressed Media Team
And remember, we always love hearing from you, so if you'd like to write to us, you can do so@hellorusthistory.com DressedHistory.com is also our website where you can sign up for our monthly newsletter, our in person tours and online fashion history courses and you can check out whatever else we have up our finely tailored sleeves.
- [36:10]
Cassie Zachary
We get so many questions from you all about our recommendations for fashion history books, so if you are interested you can always find a link in our show Notes to our Bookshop Bookshelf. So that address is bookshop.org shop.
- [36:26]
And.
- [36:26]
There you can find over 150 of our favorite fashion history titles and do.
- [36:31]
Dressed Media Team
You love dressed but want to skip the ads? You can now sign up for Ad free Listening with any tier on our Dressed History Patreon where you can also chat with your fellow fashion history lovers and attend one of our live Q&As and so much more.
- [36:45]
Cassie Zachary
We are also excited to now be.
- [36:46]
Part of the Airwave Network and their.
- [36:49]
Premium ad free free history subscription Airwave History plus available on Apple Podcasts. The subscription brings dress and also 27 other popular history podcasts ad free for just $5.99 per month. More information on Patreon and Airwave is available at the link in our bio.
- [37:09]
Dressed Media Team
Thank you as always for tuning in and more dress coming your way very soon. The history of fashion is a production of dressed media.
- [37:20]
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