The Art of Attire: Revisited wisdom from Claire McCardell
The American designer Claire McCardell's 1956 book, "What Shall I Wear?, now reissued, is reviewed in both the New York Times by Vanessa Friedman, no less, and in the September issue of Vogue.
McCardell, who died in her fifties in 1958, has long been a dream designer, but the few remaining pieces for sale on the vintage market are stratospherically out of reach; this dress is listed on eBay for nearly $US 600:
She called certain signature effects "McCardellisms": bias cutting, hook-and-eye or asymmetrical closures, the use of casual fabrics like suede or denim for evening. Like Mary Quant, she had little use for effects that served only to decorate. When I find myself muttering, "Why are these buttons here if they don't button?", that's the McCardell muse.
A few comments in her book have dated, such as her assertion that you "want to look nice for your husband when he comes home from work", but because my mother did exactly that, I view these admonitions with tolerance.
Other advice, though, is durable as her trench coat. Several gems are quoted in the Vogue article written by Laia Garcia-Furtado. Garcia-Furtado's favourite is, "Know your audience": know where your originality will be admired, where it will discomfit, and by all that's holy, whether your 'creative touch' suits you. (Why didn't someone tell me that in my fake wolf-fur coat with shoulders wider than a Volkswagen, I looked like Mr. Snuffleupagus?)
McCardell respected a range of expression—from conformity to daring deviation — but always guided by an awareness of the kind of life one lived She knew women wanted to cook a company dinner in a dress and then appear at the table looking, as she said, "casual but not careless". She writes, “You, too, can start a trend. For yourself. Something that can identify you, be just for you.”
Echoes of her elegant pragmatism are around today, though they are expensive. (In her day, McCardell's sportswear was egalitarian in spirit, but still pricey.) Just these three pieces took me hours to find, in a sea of generic sportswear.
Tie-neck cotton chambray dress (with pockets); price, $CDN 365 at Toast.
Stella McCartney Glitched Herringbone coat; price, $CDN 3, 715.
"Anya" Mary Jane flats from J. Crew in metallic silver; price, $CDN 217. Qunitessentially Claire, thanks to metallic leather and a squared toe.
Then, I found the mother lode, Tory Burch. Many of her pieces could slip into a McCardell retrospective. Burch wrote the foreword to the re-issue of "What Shall I Wear?" She has announced a fellowship in both hers and McCardell's names at the Maryland Center for History and Culture, to preserve her work.
The "Picnic Plaid Silk Claire McCardell Dress"; price, $CDN 1,198, is sold out in many sizes in silk but the cotton version is on sale for half price.
Witty cat's-eye sunglasses show a classic McCardell touch, a distinctive angled curve. Sale price, $CDN 189, in various colours.
Woven sateen anorak, $CDN 399 (sale price, from Private Sale section of site). Anoraks abound, but this is sateen with a removable lining in wallpaper floral and a shearling-lined hood. The topstitching on the gentle band collar...! That's what I'm talkin', sisters.
Seventy years later, these labour-intensive techniques are if not extinct, hard to find. In 1955, McCardell said, "I've always designed designed things I needed for myself. It just turns out that other people need them too."
Betsy Blodgett has written an outstanding review of her career and an in-depth analysis of her designs here, published by Seamwork.
Comments
Vancouver Barbara: Thanks. It is hard for us to imagine now how revolutionary these clothes were, and what a breath of modernity this kind of American sportswear was. Now so much of it looks like pyajamas.
Bytowner: I'm going to be watching Tory Burch more closely. I'd evaluated the brand as too preppy for me but her McCardell-influenced designs are covetable.
Dressing for one’s audience. At face value I thought ‘Ridiculous, I’ll damn well dress for myself’ after a little introspection it came to me that THIS is what constitutes ‘well dressed’. We live in a society where we fear to offend but if we are dressing for our audience at least our outfit won’t be called out. In another blog a reader wrote in concerned about the appropriateness of certain muted shades worn to a family memorial service instead of black. The correct answer..dress for your audience! The mourning royal family wore exclusively black because they are dressing for the audience (which is simply another way of saying royal protocol)If they had been the middle class family down the street then other muted shades besides black would have been accepted by their ‘audience’.
When going to tea with wildly eccentric aunt Imelda then wear the jazzy jacket and earrings but if dining with cousin Louise who could have taught the late Queen a thing or two about decorum then …dress for your audience!! It’s the perfect answer to that age old ‘what shall I wear?’ question.
In the end it doesn’t take away our individuality nor our freedom to choose. It actually makes us more creative! The woman who staunchly armours herself in classic clothing might need to step up with something more interesting for an evening with the Boho in-laws but she can still maintain her personal style.
I also love,love the comment that the same colour in different fabrics won’t be well, the same colour. Discussion on another blog about an EF colour Cassis. Many found it read differently in different fabrics well, duh! Of course it will! My mother was a fabulous sewist and we once famously argued about a dress with a velvet top and satin skirt. The woman had an eye for colour like no other and insisted the two fabrics took on the colour differently. The emerald green of the satin looking ‘minty’ and washed out and…cheap looking. We went all velvet, luxurious fabric being the perfect medium for the deep green we were after. The satin would not only not been the colour we were after but would have ultimately downgraded the final look. Ha, it was a lot more expensive too.
Some of McCardell’s advice is very dated, of its era of course and sexist but it was the fifties and ‘feminine wiles’ such as wearing spindly heels so your male companion would spring for a taxi were encouraged. Who the heck wears a dress to cook a major company dinner and then sports the same rag to the dinner table???
Like cook books of the era there is advice we can apply to our times but much to shake our heads at and just leave on the table or under it along with the spindly heels.
I am a retired librarian, and I love your story. Two of S.R. Ranganathan's laws of library science are "Every reader his book" and "Every book its reader." I love it when books find their readers!
Of course I still feel a little guilty about what I did, so being forgiven by a librarian helps a lot! Thank you.
Allison: Thank you for building on this post so articulately. My mother had the same advice about the appearance of colour in different fabrics. When I was still too young to buy clothes, she taught me that all blacks are not the same colour, also navy blue. (She would not wear such imprecise 'matches').
I do wear a dress (or a dressy top) to do the last-step cooking for a festive or special-occasion dinner, when you can't avoid some kitchen activity. I usually remember to whip off my waiter-style apron when joining the guests. My friend Jim, who dislikes aprons and is always on view in his loft kitchen, wears a chef's jacket. I think that's a very McCardell solution.
"Elegance" is still useful for its comments on colour and quality; however, no one I know wears certain clothes only in morning or in the afternoon.
I love how Jessica Parker thinks. Though I am not into vintage anymore, I was heartened by her account of how she came to terms with who she was, and how dismally the current marketplace served her.
There is a time in life, which for me was by the time I turned age 50, when vintage did not make me look smart in any sense of the word, it just made me look like I had not gone shopping for 25 years.
I will still swoon over a beautifully-made item from the '30s- '50s, but since Ms. Parker wrote the blog, vintage has been so heavily picked-over that treasures, such as a Dior raincoat I once found in a Sally Ann in the early '90s, are the suff of legend. I do buy some secondhand contemporary clothing and delight in thriftfinds like a like a good cashmere sweater.