Elizabeth Evitt Dickinson’s first book, "Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free," has been named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, an Amazon Editor’s pick for Best History and an NPR Book of the Day. Dickinson teaches graduate-level writing at Towson University. Photo © Stefani Foster Labrecque

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How did Claire McCardell, a woman born in 1905 in Frederick, Maryland, grow up to be one of America’s most famous fashion designers?

That’s the question Baltimore writer Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson, 52, tries to answer in her new biography, Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free.

Published by Simon & Schuster in June, the book has already made a big splash: it’s been named a New York Times Editors’ Choice, an Amazon Editor’s pick for Best History and an NPR Book of the Day.

McCardell was once a household name, but she has all but been forgotten. Yet her contributions to the fashion world cannot be overestimated, Dickinson said.

“McCardell gave us a new silhouette in fashion. She created what became American fashion, which is American sportswear,” Dickinson explained.

McCardell forever changed women’s clothing with her inventions like mix-and-match separates and the ballet flat. She was the first woman to create her own ready-to-wear label and one of the only women in fashion to become a partner in her firm. McCardell’s influence spread when she licensed patterns of her designs in the 1950s, and they’re still popular today.

Years in the making

Dickinson first became aware of Claire McCardell in the late 1990s, when she was working at her first job out of college at what’s now the Maryland Center for History and Culture in Baltimore and saw an exhibit of McCardell’s clothes.

“I couldn’t believe that the woman who effectively invented or pioneered much of what was in my closet wasn’t a name I knew,” Dickinson said.

In 2018, Dickinson, by then an award-winning journalist and a contributing writer for The Washington Post Magazine, published an article to mark the anniversary of one of McCardell’s important designs, a pleated, form-fitting dress known as the Monastic.

“I wrote a magazine feature, and at the end of that I thought, ‘My goodness, this is a book,’” Dickinson said.

“Even though this is a history and a biography of a mid-century designer, I [saw] so many echoes with today that I thought her story was very timely,” she said.

Researching a Maryland heroine

Dickinson began her research by visiting archives in Baltimore and New York. She interviewed McCardell’s family members, read her letters and diaries and spoke with the daughter of her close friend.

She learned that when McCardell was growing up in Frederick in the early 1900s, it was a place at the crossroads of culture.

“There was an opera house. There were suffragettes giving speeches. Her parents also took her to D.C. museums and theaters,” Dickinson said.

McCardell’s grandfather owned a candy store, where he invented and patented candy molds. McCardell, therefore, came to understand at a young age that anyone could have an idea, design it, make it real and then sell it.

“This later helped her become one of the first people to really marry high [fashion] design with mass production in order to make ready-to-wear American sportswear,” Dickinson said.

McCardell graduated from Parsons School of Design and stayed in New York City, becoming one of several female designers there who were bringing about change.

“The birth of the American fashion industry in New York in the 1930s and ’40s was because of a constellation of extraordinary women. It was a woman-led endeavor. McCardell was arguably at the top of this group, but she wasn’t alone,” Dickinson explained.

All the while, McCardell and her female colleagues faced challenges trying to balance the demands of family life and career.

“That’s part of why Claire’s story was important to tell now,” Dickinson said. “I think we’re at a time still, and sadly, where a lot of the battles that McCardell and her friends were fighting we’re back fighting again.”

Maryland’s support

Dickinson, who attended Towson High School, studied French literature at SUNY Buffalo and then worked for Architect magazine and other publications. She has won several awards for her writing and was named a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow in 2018. She has taught writing at Johns Hopkins University, Towson University and MICA.

She received grants from the Maryland State Arts Council, the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.

“One of the greatest experiences of working on this book has been the ways in which the booksellers of Baltimore, the fellow writers, have all rallied around me,” Dickinson said. “You need support, and Baltimore has proved incredibly supportive for me, and I wouldn’t be anyplace else.”

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson will discuss her book at the Ivy Bookshop, 5928 Falls Rd., Baltimore, on Friday, October 10 at 6 p.m.

Correction: The print version of this story misnamed the title of the book. It is Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free.