In our world of no rules and everything is on trend, you’d think the last thing we need is a book telling women how to dress.
And still! Claire McCardell’s What should I wear? What, where, when and how much fashiona sharp and subtle book first published in 1957 and now back in print with an introduction by Tory Burch, it’s the best and most insightful fashion book I’ve read this year.
McCardell was an American designer during an era that most armchair historians tend to associate with the glories of Paris fashion. And her name may not be as well known as fellow Americans Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren or Donna Karan. But the designs she created in the 1940s and 1950s, before she died of colon cancer in 1957, were some of fashion’s most revolutionary. Spaghetti straps, ballet flats, and pockets and zippers on dresses were all McCardell innovations.
“What’s so fascinating is that 75 years after the fact, she makes they seem so relevant to the way women want to dress,” reflects Burch. “It’s really interesting, the way she gave women the ability to be unhappy and free, [but also] to see fashion more as an individual. That was something I really admired.”
McCardell’s forms were cheerful, but never funny. She had the confidence to be direct.
In her book, McCardell is part fashion philosopher, part industry hand and part style guru. Incidentally, her words read like a kind of durable fashion bible (although changes in manufacturing and innovations in synthetics mean that a “cheap” dress from her era is much more likely to last than a “cheap” one today ). More gracefully—frankly, more powerfully—she urges women not to adopt a skeptical stance against fads or fads, the familiar pose today that encourages women to excuse themselves entirely from appreciating fashion’s whims, trends, and beauty.
“I would urge you to be brave,” she writes, after several sober pages exploring the frivolities of fashion. “Check out the new fashions and see if they can be yours. Try the way they fit, feel, look – how they should be worn – how you will wear them. You will find that you have a great choice…. Explore fashion and say No if you are not temperamentally capable of starting a trend.”
McCardell’s work, like her wisdom, had a truly unique blend of pragmatism and fascination. “She always thought about women,” says Burch. “She was an extraordinary feminist before feminism was really mainstream.” She had a way of using geometric lines and plaids to create flattering dynamism; her sense of color was understated but strong, declarative. Her expressions were cheerful, but never funny. She had the confidence to be direct.
Burch is a McCardelli through and through. After first encountering the designer’s work in her art history studies at the University of Pennsylvania, she found herself thinking about it again when her husband, Pierre-Yves Roussel, took over as CEO in 2019. “I I gave up that title and role. and was able to have some time to think about the design,” she explains. “I wanted to try to make it a little more personal to me.”
McCardell was one of the first figures that came to mind. For her Spring 2022 collection, she created a handful of sequin dresses and dresses that paid homage to McCardell, with a fitted waist and a pleated hem in a crisp silk. It’s one of the few dresses I’ve tried on over the last few years that fits me like a glove, requiring no trips to the tailor, and actually makes me look better instead of cooler—as Burch put it , when I decided, it seems to me that it is up me. (She continued the design for the fall season.)
The reason for this was McCardell’s own inherent modernity. Her designs were feminine and occasionally romantic, but mostly they were strong and versatile. Haute Couture designers now rarely think about how fabrics and silhouettes can complement or fit into a woman’s life, instead focusing on commercialism or wild creativity. “She wasn’t looking to do fashion in Paris,” says Burch. “Actually, they were looking at it. And she was going against every stereotype, every norm and borrowing from sports. And also from menswear – I’ve always been fascinated with the feminine-masculine idea of what it means to create your own style.”
Burch, too, admires McCardell’s emphasis on working with rather than about (or even oblivious to) a woman’s body: “Her designs,” she explains, “were celebrating a woman’s body. She was saying that some things work for you and some things don’t.”
Perhaps McCardell’s most important legacy is the fact that she wrote a book at all. McCardell believed that fashion was not something for the very few, be they the very passionate or the very rich or both. The goal of the book and McCardell’s clothing, too, was, Burch said, to help all women “feel more confident. And I think when clothes get too complicated or too precious—which I love too, by the way, I’m not taking that away—it’s not as understandable for some women. There is nothing better for me to hear that when someone wears our collection, they feel more confident and feel like a better version of themselves.”
Women today are busy, “as they were in the forties and fifties, in a different way”, she continues. “But they don’t want to just focus on how they look all the time. They want to go out and they want to feel really stylish and put together. This is not natural [gift] for some people. I think being able to solve those problems and give people a collection where they can make it their own and mix it up is something I’ve always been interested in.”
The idea of dressing as a service to women still feels new today, when it often feels like your only two options are Shein stan or victim fashion. As Burch said, “It’s easy to forget how radical Claire was.”
Rachel Tashjian is the Fashion News Director at Harper’s Bazaar, working across print and digital platforms. Before, she was GQthe first fashion critic and worked as deputy editor of GARAGE and as a writer in Vanity Fair. She has written for publications including Book Forum AND Artforumand is the creator of the invitation-only Wealthy Tips newsletter.
