1905-1958
Creator of the "American Look " in Fashion

Paper Dolls.

The daughter of a banker and state senator, Claire McCardell as a small child cut out and dressed paper dolls from her mother's fashion magazines. After high school she attended the Parsons School of Design in New York, later studying at the school's Paris division for a year.

For Ordinary Women.

Unlike other designers of the time who copied the stilted Parisian fashions, McCardell decided to modify them to fit the ordinary woman's pocketbook and demand for comfort as well as fashion. McCardell is credited with originating the so-called American Look of the 1950s, the forerunner of today's comfortable, easy fashions. Clothes should be comfortable as well as handsome, she said, and should be appropriate to the occasion. They should fit well and be attractive.

American Fabrics.

McCardell used such American fabrics as calico, seersucker, ticking...