Zero waste daniel. All — Elma Lingerie. Deconstructing Claire McCardell | Seamwork Magazine. Racing home from the flea market, 21-year-old Claire McCardell, future fashion designer and leader of the "American Look," rushed into her dormitory room at Parson’s Place des Vosges campus in Paris. Pulling a crumpled wad of satin out of her bag, she grabbed her seam ripper and, very carefully, started disassembling a Madeleine Vionnet gown, determined to unlock the mysteries of couture construction before flawlessly sewing the garment back together. 1926 was a good year to be in Paris. American expatriates like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway had settled in the city of light, riding the waves of success from publishing The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises. Years later, while discussing her predilection for deconstructing couture garments, McCardell stated she was, “learning about the important things—the way clothes worked, the way they felt, where they fastened.”
Early Years At the time there was no training in fashion design, that was purely the territory of the French. Why Jackie Kennedy’s wedding dress designer was fashion’s ‘best kept secret’ In 1953, when Ann Lowe received a commission to create a wedding gown for society swan Jacqueline Bouvier, she was thrilled. Lowe, an African-American designer who was a favorite of the society set, had been hired to dress the woman of the hour, the entire bridal party and Jackie’s mother.
But 10 days before Jackie and Sen. John F. Kennedy were to say “I do,” a water pipe broke and flooded Lowe’s Madison Avenue studio, destroying 10 of the 15 frocks, including the bride’s elaborate dress, which had taken two months to make. Modal Trigger In between her tears, Lowe, then 55, ordered more ivory French taffeta and candy-pink silk faille, and corralled her seamstresses to work all day. Now, the country’s first black high-fashion designer is finally getting her due. “She was exceptional; her work really moves you,” says Smithsonian curator Elaine Nichols. Lowe was born in Clayton, Ala., in 1898. Through the 1940s to the end of the ’60s, Lowe was known as society’s “best-kept secret.” Ace&jig. SUNO - Luxury Designer Fashion | Women's Designer Clothing, Shoes, Bags & Accessories. Shabdismyname. Rachel Comey - Home. Thakoon | Explore the New Now. Alabama Chanin. The Forgotten Designer Behind Some of Fashion’s Biggest Trends.
Photo As the leather goods and apparel company Coach celebrates its 75th anniversary this year with an ad campaign focused on its heritage, a battle has been going on in the United States Patent and Trademark Office for the rights to the name of perhaps its best-known designer, Bonnie Cashin. Call it a tempest in a bucket bag. For anyone under 40, Cashin’s name doesn’t exactly resonate, though some fashion scholars go so far as to credit her with inventing American sportswear. The designer, who died in 2000 (Cashin maintained that she was born in 1915, though the census for 1910 puts her birth year at “abt 1908”), left a legacy of hard-working ponchos and wizardly “carriables,” a.k.a. handbags.
This opposition has come partly from Coach, whose original parent company, Gail Leather Products, hired Cashin in 1962 as Coach’s first designer. Coach has since grown into a behemoth with net sales of $954 million in the last reported quarter, but it was not Cashin’s only client. Ms. L. Were Ms. Ruffeo Hearts Lil' Snotty - Home. Nikki Chasin. SUNO. Country Selector Page - Alexander Wang Online Store. Patrik Ervell. Cushnie Et Ochs. Creatures of the Wind. THOM BROWNE. NEW YORK. Band of Outsiders. Home. Tim Hamilton. Home Page | Duckie Brown.