Empresses of Seventh Avenue
World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion
-
-
4.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $16.99
Publisher Description
A NEW YORK TIMES MOST ANTICIPATED • "Reads like a work of fiction, but remarkably, it's all true" (Airmail) • In the tradition of The Barbizon and The Girls of Atomic City, fashion historian and journalist Nancy MacDonell chronicles the untold story of how the Nazi invasion of France gave rise to the American fashion industry.
Calvin Klein. Ralph Lauren. Donna Karan. Halston. Marc Jacobs. Tom Ford. Michael Kors. Tory Burch. Today, American designers are some of the biggest names in fashion, yet before World War II, they almost always worked anonymously. The industry, then centered on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, had always looked overseas for "inspiration"—a polite phrase for what was often blatant copying—because style, as all the world knew, came from Paris.
But when the Nazis invaded France in 1940, the capital of fashion was cut off from the rest of the world. The story of the chaos and tragedy that followed has been told many times—but how it directly affected American fashion is largely unknown.
Defying the naysayers, New York-based designers, retailers, editors, and photographers met the moment, turning out clothes that were perfectly suited to the American way of life: sophisticated, modern, comfortable, and affordable. By the end of the war, "the American Look" had been firmly established as a fresh, easy elegance that combined function with style. But none of it would have happened without the influence and ingenuity of a small group of women who have largely been lost to history.
Empresses of Seventh Avenue will tell the story of how these extraordinary women put American fashion on the world stage and created the template for modern style—and how the nearly $500 billion American fashion industry, the largest in the world, could not have accrued its power and wealth without their farsightedness and determination.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Fashion writer MacDonell (The Classic Ten) delivers a colorful chronicle of the female journalists, designers, and retailers who revolutionized American style during WWII. American designers, who'd long deferred to French couturiers for inspiration, were at a loss after the Nazis invaded France in 1940, according to the author. Thankfully, with the "flow of ideas" from Paris cut off, a coterie of New York fashion innovators stepped up to the plate. They included designer Claire McCardell, who introduced comfortable ready-to-wear separates marketed to working women; Lord & Taylor vice president Dorothy Shaver, who spearheaded promotional campaigns spotlighting American designers; and Harper's Bazaar editor Diana Vreeland and photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe, who teamed up for fashion shoots that depicted the confident and athletic "modern American woman." By the war's end, the popularity of the "American Look" and the country's supercharged mass production capabilities had elevated New York City to a fashion capital on par with Paris. MacDonnell's fine-grained character studies (Dahl-Wolfe could be "huffy and thin-skinned, especially if she thought another photographer was infringing on her territory") complement her fascinating insights into the political and cultural forces that ushered in a new era of American style. Fashionistas won't be able to put this one down.
