Claire McCardell

I first saw a Claire McCardell dress in 1998 at the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore, and I never forgot it. McCardell “modernized the way women dress,” the designer Anna Sui told me. “Her clothes are timeless.” I’ve always wondered why people outside of the fashion industry don’t remember McCardell, so I dove into her archives and into the fashion world and I found the fascinating story of an ambitious, talented woman and feminist who forever changed how we dress. My story appeared in the December 16, 2018 print edition of The Washington Post Magazine and can be read here online. And it became the inspiration for my book Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free, which comes out on June 17, 2025 from Simon & Schuster.