Empresses of Seventh Avenue: World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion

Fashion writer MacDonell (The Classic Ten) delivers a colorful chronicle of the female journalists, designers, and retailers who revolutionized American style during WWII. American designers, who’d long deferred to French couturiers for inspiration, were at a loss after the Nazis invaded France in 1940, according to the author. Thankfully, with the “flow of ideas” from Paris cut off, a coterie of New York fashion innovators stepped up to the plate. They included designer Claire McCardell, who introduced comfortable ready-to-wear separates marketed to working women; Lord & Taylor vice president Dorothy Shaver, who spearheaded promotional campaigns spotlighting American designers; and Harper’s Bazaar editor Diana Vreeland and photographer Louise Dahl-Wolfe, who teamed up for fashion shoots that depicted the confident and athletic “modern American woman.” By the war’s end, the popularity of the “American Look” and the country’s supercharged mass production capabilities had elevated New York City to a fashion capital on par with Paris. MacDonnell’s fine-grained character studies (Dahl-Wolfe could be “huffy and thin-skinned, especially if she thought another photographer was infringing on her territory”) complement her fascinating insights into the political and cultural forces that ushered in a new era of American style. Fashionistas won’t be able to put this one down. (Aug.)