Before there was Diane von Furstenberg, Vera Wang and Tory Burch, there was Claire McCardell.

Born in 1905 and starting designing clothes in her twenties, McCardell helped define American fashion as we know it. During her time, American dressmakers sought inspiration from the rise of European fashion designers, but McCardell had no interest in creating extravagant gowns for the upper echelons. She wanted to create clothes that busy women could wear every day.

Unlike iconic designers of the time such as Coco Chanel and Christian Dior, McCardell’s name is largely forgotten. Few people realize that many of her clothes we wear every day go back to the designs she created. Tory Burch wants to change that. The American designer uses her influence to make her McCardell’s stand out.

Burch wrote the foreword to McCardell’s newly reissued book. what to wear She founded a fellowship dedicated to McCardell’s work at the Maryland Center for History and Culture (MCHC), which houses one of the largest collections of her work. She also created her entire Spring/Summer 2022 collection inspired by McCardell, duplicating two designs.

Birch first met McCardell in an art history class while a student at the University of Pennsylvania. Still, Birch was shocked how little was known about her. “This is another example of how women have been overlooked throughout history,” she says. “So many women’s contributions are not properly documented and girls don’t have the role models they should be. I think this is something we collectively need to change.” “

Birch eventually pursued a career in fashion and launched her own label in 2004. As she designed the collection, she began to understand how McCardell’s work continues to influence American fashion. “She borrowed from menswear and workwear,” Birch says. “She used unconventional fabrics, like denim and jersey. And she came up with a new way of looking at clothes by truncating them and cutting them in new ways.” I don’t know anyone.”

In the 1930s and 1940s, women were obsessed with clothing. Many people still wore corsets, Birch notes. She has been fascinated with fashion since she was a child growing up in Maryland. She moved to New York City, where she attended the New York School of Fine and Applied Art, now known as the Parsons School of Design, after which she attended the Paris chapter of the same school. While many of McCardell’s peers were drawn to the French high-fashion artistry, McCardell was interested in blending elegance and functionality. She wanted to create works that allowed women to move freely.

In 1930, a few years after graduation, she got a job as an assistant to designer Robert Turk. He brought McCardell with him when he started designing her phloxes for the dress company Townley. But she died in 1932, Turk died in an accidental drowning, and McCardell was commissioned to complete the fall collection. Within a few years, she became the brand’s most famous designer, and her name appeared on clothing labels. She chose to spend her career. Most of her outfits cost the equivalent of $100 in today’s currency.

One of her early works in 1938, the monastic dress, was a belted frock without a defined waist. This meant that women could wear them comfortably as their bodies changed over time. Perhaps her most famous work, the popover her dress, was a wrap her dress designed in 1942 to be worn from the kitchen to her dinner party. It had large pockets, which was rare at the time (and today), and some women carried oven mittens.

And she effectively invented the ballet flat. She contacted ballet her brand Capezio to redesign her pointe shoes with durable soles that women could wear more comfortably around town than the heels that were common at the time. “She was a feminist,” says Birch. “She was driven by the concept of giving women freedom. Men didn’t have to deal with these issues, so why should women?”

There is no single reason why McCardell faded from our collective memory. One might be that McCardell died of colon cancer at the age of 52. After she died, her family wouldn’t bring in another designer like European fashion houses did. There is also the fact that she immediately closed her brand.

Birch believes there is now an opportunity to remember McCardell and honor her legacy. For one thing, she wants her researchers and designers to dig through the archives of her own work. As such, she sponsors a fellowship that allows fashion scholars to organize exhibitions about her. Birch herself spent hours at her MCHC, delving into McCardell’s interactions with famous designers and artists of the time, from Picasso to Yves Saint Laurent. “She starts to see the impact she has had on her world,” Birch says.

Burch also studied clothing designed by McCardell. “Women wore dresses, so there aren’t many dresses left,” Birch says. McCardell showed me how.”

But Birch believes designers like herself can play a role in highlighting McCardell’s influence and legacy in their creations. , Burch took aesthetic and functional inspiration from McCardell’s work. Instead of a seamed waist, Birch used belts, sashes, and bandeaus to define the waist of her outfit, creating balanced proportions with her full skirt and relaxed trousers. She created two pairs of his shoes that McCardell created, flat, striped silk-cotton exact replicas of her boots created with Capezio in 1953.

One of Birch’s favorite pieces in the collection is called the Claire McCardell dress. The cotton material has pleats from the shoulders to the hem for easy movement, and it also has side pockets. It’s functional yet beautiful and looks modern, but bears a striking resemblance to many of McCardell’s iconic dresses. “People are very visual,” Birch says. “One of the ways you can save her [McCardell’s] Legacy is to show them what she has done. Her clothes are timeless. “