Like her subject, Dickinson thrives on the limits of her craft ... Dickinson’s book is the linchpin I didn’t know I needed, the first cradle-to-grave biography of McCardell written for a general audience ... Dickinson weaves a dynamic and immersive narrative, reconstructing McCardell’s time and place with the vivid immediacy necessary to fully appreciate her genius. At last, we have everything there is to know about McCardell...under one cover ... Now that I know McCardell was the patron saint of this mind-clothing connection, I fervently hope that Dickinson’s marvelous, necessary book will return her to the mainstream.
Lively and psychologically astute ... Dickinson offers a portrait of a revolutionary...and examining McCardell’s story helps expand our sense of what revolution can look like ... Thoroughly researched.
Smart, insightful ... Dickinson is an admirable champion of McCardell’s legacy. It’s a challenging cause, as the designer was not one of fashion’s outsize characters, ruled instead by modesty and decency. This biography is written in concise prose, though Dickinson exhibits a tendency to empty her notebook, plucking useless tidbits.
The book’s beginning is perfect .. Ms. Dickinson is deft with telling details ...
Ms. Dickinson is particularly good on the web of women who brought these inventions to the marketplace—professional buyers, press people, editors. Yet her analysis of McCardell’s designs is thin, not as acute on the poetics of construction as on the feminist result. And a sometimes too-tight focus on McCardell has a way of leaving the fashion landscape arid.
Who knew U.S. designers would come to owe so much to McCardell? But such is the charm of this book and its author that you’ll care about a designer you’ve never heard of ... Delightful.
Dickinson engagingly integrates McCardell’s work and life with the evolution of the fashion industry and American society from the 1920s through the 1950s. Even the least fashion-conscious reader will appreciate learning about Claire McCardell’s accomplishments.
