Before American fashion had the names of Ralph Lauren, Marc Jacobs, or Diane Von Furstenberg to represent this industry around the world, there was not a lot of room for American fashion design because for centuries —ever since King Louis XIV made of France a global luxury brand with his ambition and eccentric personality, France had been dictating fashion trends for American consumers.
Journalists, communicators, and the American elite would travel to Paris seeking the newest and most extraordinary designs from couturiers to bring them back to the United States. The American elite would purchase directly from Parisian couturiers. Still, many journalists, communicators, and American businesspeople brought back from Paris the ideas, silhouettes, and designs from the French to replicate, reinterpret, and mass-produce their version of what they saw in these designs.
So how did we get from the French leading in an imperative fashion (pun intended) the Americans’ wardrobe to the rich and diverse American fashion industry that provides options for global consumers across several price points —from GAP led now by American Fashion Designer Zac Posen, to high fashion names like Oscar de la Renta, or Tom Ford?
There was a lot of uplifting and hard work needed to be done for American fashion to get the recognition and space that it has today.
This work was led by hardworking, perseverant, uniquely talented, and very often under-acknowledged names. Journalist and fashion historian Nancy MacDonell refers to them as “Empresses of Seventh Avenue” in her latest book under that name. The book narrates carefully the background, personal and professional story, and influence of women who, during the 20th century, worked diligently in the name of fashion as communicators, editors-in-chief, publicists, retailers, creators, designers, businesspeople, and leaders of opinion.
“It was one of these ideas that I had for a long time before realizing I had the idea,” said MacDonell when I asked her how the idea for this book first came to her mind. This period between the wars has always fascinated me, in part because it was an incredible time for women designers. In Paris we had Elsa Schiaparelli, we had Madeleine Vionet, we had Coco Chanel, and of course we had great fashion designers in America as well. When we think of fashion history, it’s usually designer stories that we are telling, but they cannot do it on their own; they need a support system. I realized that all of these women that I knew individually, of course, knew each other. I wanted to tell a more complete story of American fashion. Not just about this incredible fashion that Elizabeth Hawes designed, or Claire McCardell designed, but the entire story, including journalists and retailers and Eleanor Lambert, who really invented the idea of “the fashion publicist.”
The journey of Carmel Snow.
Carmel Snow was the editor-in-chief of Harper’s Bazaar —the fashion publication that, during her time leading the publication, truly pushed the boundaries creatively while Vogue was targeting suburban readers through a more toned-down lens when it comes to fashion.
In Empresses of Seventh Avenue, MacDonell describes an incredibly risky trip that Snow took in December of 1944, when World War II was not over yet, but her eagerness to see how had Paris fashion changed during the war did not allow her to wait any longer.
“She was determined to get the story first. She was certified as a war correspondent, and went into what she called her greatest adventure.” MacDonell describes in her book the remarkably circuitous route that she took during the last month of 1944. “From New York she flew to Miami, where she climbed on board a plane bound for Trinidad. From Trinidad, she took off for Caracas, then winged her way across the South Atlantic to Dakar. In Dakar, she boarded a flight to Lisbon, and then journeyed on to Madrid, where she arrived on December 16, the first day of the Ardennes Offensive.
World War II was several months away from being over. This trip speaks about Snow’s conviction and determination to be the first to get the information. Nobody knew what was going on in Paris at that time, what fashion looked like, what the whereabouts of the couturiers making high fashion before the war, etc. Carmel Snow didn’t even get the information that correspondents were encouraged to bring their coffee since the resources in Paris were very low-quality and extremely limited.
This two-week trip on the way there with two months staying in Europe (mostly France, but spent some days in Madrid with her friend, Cristóbal Balenciaga, gave Snow the capacity to report back to New York what was happening in Paris —amid a very hard to imagine scenario in today’s world where the Nazis had blocked all sorts of communication coming in and out of Paris and Snow becoming a reliable first hand source of information during this pivotal moment in time.
“This trip really burnished her reputation as a fearless editor and as one of the greatest editors of all time,” MacDonell said. “She had this reputation as being almost like a bit witchy. She was able to put her hand on everything that was important. She did have this incredible rivalry with Edna Woolman Chase, the editor-in-chief of Vogue. She used to work for Vogue. She was hired by Condé Nast, the person, not the company. And he let her to believe that Edna Woolman Chase was going to retire and she would take over. And about 10 years in, she realized that wasn’t going to happen. So when she was offered a job in Harpers Bazaar by William Randolph Hearst, she took it. At this time, Vogue and Bazaar were like two countries in a permanent state of hostility. They didn’t talk to each other. When she left, it was treasonous for the people at Vogue.” Vogue had offices in Paris, but Carmel Snow was determined to get the story first.
The legacy of Eleanor Lambert
Eleanor Lambert was a pioneer in the fashion publicist world —we could even say that Lambert was the inventor of fashion PR in America as we know it today. Some of Lambert’s contributions to the American fashion industry were the establishment of the International Best-Dressed List to boost the reputation of American fashion, the founding of the Coty American Fashion Critics’ Award in 1942, and the establishment of the Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) which remains current as a platform to support and introduce new generations of American designers.
The most consequential pitch Lambert made during her entire career was that of the Battle of Versailles.
It was 1973, and French curator Gérald Van der Kemp was struggling to preserve the Palace of Versailles. He managed to get rid of the large rat population, but the French government of the time, still ambivalent about the royalist past of their nation, contributed very little to the preservation of this palace.
Lambert proposed that Van der Kemp host a fashion show, but with the unexpected twist of having an equal number of American and French designers. “They could bill it as an evening of fun for deep-patrons of the arts and sell tickets” describes MacDonell in her book.
The Battle of Versailles became an incredibly important spotlight for five American fashion designers: Oscar de la Renta, Halston, Anne Klein, Bill Blass, and Stephen Burrows, but it was also an evening that show how the American fashion industry was producing ready-to-wear clothes, which were more aligned with what the day-to-day consumer wanted to wear after several centuries of couture, and one of a kind pieces.
The voice of Elizabeth Hawes
She was way ahead of her time in terms of her ideas. She was a writer as much as she was a designer. Hawes established the concept of the French legend, an idea that all beautiful clothes come from Paris ateliers. It is this belief —that according to MacDonell, it still exists although it’s not as prevalent as it was before— that the best fashion comes from Paris, and that it leads the way in which fashion is moving. Hawes went to Paris to study for several years wanting to become a couturier, but when she came back from America she decided the French legend was a total sham, and she wanted to tell people this.
Hawes’s voice went beyond fashion. It was Political Fashion. Book after book, she shared her left-leaning points of views with so much character and conviction that were ahead of her time. From advocating for child-care to pushing for more research on women’s health, Elizabeth Hawes was an incredibly important voice for Americans in the 20th century.
This is a passage from her book Hurry Up Please, it’s time.
A dress designer would have to be blind and deaf not to conclude that her own well-being, as well as the desire for the beautiful, are bound and tied to that of the whole country, the world: tied to jobs, security, and peace for the majority of the people.
The role of women in fashion
It has been women who have continuously revolutionized the fashion industry.
Marie Antoinette illustrates the ostentatious and eccentric fashion of the 18th century with her “pouf” (a hairstyle that adds volume to the hair and became popular in the 1770s because of the Queen.
It was Josephine Bonaparte, who, after the Reign of Terror in France, pushed back on boned corsets and proclaimed the old underwear to be the new outerwear with her friend Terezia. A pivotal moment that revolutionized fashion for good.
(Learn more about the French women who made Political Fashion and made a Revolution)
In Empresses of Seventh Avenue, Nancy MacDonell shows us that it was women who put American fashion on the map. The fashion journalism, opinions, fashion, and creations that the Empresses of Seventh Avenue did for American fashion still contribute to the way American fashion is being represented and consumed across the world.
Unfortunately, many of these names are not widely known, and their legacies don’t get the attention they deserve. American Fashion designer Tory Burch describes Empresses as “the Extraordinary American women who shaped our industry”. When asked about the contrast between fashion in the early 20th century versus the 21st century MacDonell believes things have changed, but of course they are not perfect. She points out the need to have more people of color, women, and marginalized groups. “From an industry that is all about change, fashion can be stuck in the past.”
MacDonell’s book is patriotic, because it tells the story of hardworking women who loved America and American fashion, and worked extremely hard for people in this country and around the world to share that same feeling of pride and recognition for the talent, industry, and technology that comes from the United States.
“American fashion should focus on what it does best. It should reflect what the United States really looks like, with more diversity of opinion. That is changing, but it’s not there yet.”
We talked about the French legend, and I believe there is an American ready-to-wear legend that is just as interesting. It is instructive to know more about where you come from. Having this complete history of a particular period of American fashion, I think it shows people what the fashion industry was against, how audacious it was to say “New York is going to be the center of fashion, not Paris. I think this is something that many people don’t realize, what the struggle was, to get American fashion the recognition that it now has. And it is a huge industry now, billions and billions of dollars. It’s the biggest fashion market.
Carmel Snow, Edna Woolman Chase, and several of these women wrote memoirs, others were journalists, so Nancy MacDonell was able to go back to the primary sources and hear “directly” from these women about their work, their personal life, and the context they lived in navigating a still to-be-recognized American fashion industry.
“Fashion is a small world now, but it was a smaller world then”.
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