Claire McCardell

By: Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson

Narrated by: Marni Penning

Named one of The New York Times’s 100 Notable Books of 2025

The riveting hidden history of Claire McCardell, the most influential fashion designer you’ve never heard of.

Claire McCardell forever changed fashion—and most importantly, the lives of women. She shattered cultural norms around women’s clothes, and today much of what we wear traces back to her ingenious, rebellious mind. McCardell invented ballet flats and mix-and-match separates, and she introduced wrap dresses, hoodies, leggings, denim, and more into womenswear. She tossed out corsets in favor of a comfortably elegant look and insisted on pockets, even as male designers didn’t see a need for them. She made zippers easy to reach because a woman “may live alone and like it,” McCardell once wrote, “but you may regret it if you wrench your arm trying to zip a back zipper into place.”

After World War II, McCardell fought the severe, hyper-feminized silhouette championed by male designers, like Christian Dior. Dior claimed that he wanted to “save women from nature.” McCardell, by contrast, wanted to set women free. Claire McCardell became, as the young journalist Betty Friedan called her in 1955, “The Gal Who Defied Dior.”

Filled with personal drama and industry secrets, this story reveals how Claire McCardell built an empire at a time when women rarely made the upper echelons of business. At its core, hers is a story about our right to choose how we dress—and our right to choose how we live.

Fascinating Historical Bio. Why don’t we all know her?!

What a great story! There is nothing in my closet that can’t be contributed to Claire McCardle. I’m so sad that I had no idea who she was and it never heard of her. Extremely grateful for this book and the knowledge that I gained from it.

Appreciate the insights

Always love learning about trailblazing women and hadn’t made it half way through this before sending to a girlfriend who isn’t into fashion design, but IS into badass women. Also appreciate understanding where sportswear really got its start and the fashion games between US and Paris. Claire McCardell was clearly a woman who literally had other women’s backs in how she designed. I wish there were more deep looks into her personal thoughts and relationships but understand that without such info being collected or shared, the author did the best she could with what she had. Highly recommend!

What she gave

I’m grateful to Elizabeth Dickinson for telling us Claire’s marvelous journey and success in life and fashion! What would we be wearing today if it hadn’t been for her?

Well written and provocative - as I listen to the book I found many of her designs, magazine covers, and articles online.

Her advice to those who worked for her rings just as true today - trust your own judgment.

Excellent research

Absolutely enjoyed the entire book!! What a forward thinking, no nonsense woman who changed all of our lives for the better. Thank you for writing this book.

too much

Being someone whose. career has been in fashion, I was intrigued at first. But I found the narrator, though probably better at fiction then biographical, was distracting. The audible version could be better if shortened.