Publishers Weekly
05/13/2024
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.)
From the Publisher
"MacDonell’s book introduces us to the extraordinary American women who shaped our industry." —Tory Burch
"Fashion writer MacDonell delivers a colorful chronicle of the female journalists, designers, and retailers who revolutionized American style during WWII. MacDonnell’s fine-grained character studies 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." —Publishers Weekly
"Why are so many of fashion’s top design jobs still mostly held by men? At a moment when fashion’s woman problem is once again making headlines, MacDonell’s history of the female designers of early Seventh Avenue is a cheering, illuminating read." —Nicole Phelps, Global Director, Vogue Runway and Vogue Business
"Nancy MacDonell understands not only what clothes are but what they represent, the international politics and national tics behind them, what they can and should be and why. Her fascinating history will introduce a reader to unforgettable characters as she enlivens pockets of as-yet-unconnected history. An American-designed dress doesn't look the same after reading this book." —Julia Cooke, author of Come Fly The World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am
"In her densely researched, yet deliciously readable Empresses of Seventh Avenue, MacDonell charts how the scrappy American fashion industry came to rival the one in Paris. Her book crackles. It’s chic, original, and packed with characters with moxie, from the familiar—Dior, Snow, Vreeland—to the near forgotten, including such gems as the shrewd publicist Eleanor Lambert and Elizabeth Hawes, raging anarchist and designer." —Penelope Rowlands, author of A Dash of Daring: Carmel Snow and Her Life in Fashion, Art, and Letters
"At last.... the book we have been waiting for! MacDonell's exquisitely researched book is a love letter to the women responsible for the rise of American fashion. From the powerhouse players working behind the scenes as department store executives and fashion photographers to the designers who gifted women the novelty of practical chic and the fashion journalists who sung their praises, this book is the first to paint an immersive picture of the seminal role women played in American fashion's emergence from the shadow of Paris at the turn of the 20th century and beyond." —April Calahan, Fashion Historian, and host of "Dressed: The History of Fashion" podcast
"Nancy MacDonell uncovers the fascinating, forgotten history of the women who shaped American fashion as we know it today in sumptuous detail. This is an eye-opening, propulsive, and important book." —Amy Odell, New York Times bestselling author of Anna: The Biography
"Confident and approachable, Empresses of Seventh Avenue is more than a scrupulously-researched source for anyone interested in fashion. The lives of these pioneering American Women and their myriad of talents and aesthetics are crafted by MacDonell the way a florist blends an exuberant assemblage of disparate blooms—from hothouse orchids to humble wildflowers—and places them in a compelling literary narrative that is as clear and lucid as a cut crystal vase." —Patricia Mears, author and deputy director at The Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology
"I thoroughly enjoyed reading Empresses of Seventh Avenue. It brought back many memories, long forgotten or unknown, in vivid detail about the American fashion industry. I loved reading about the women who built the industry in America." —Carol Spencer, author of Dressing Barbie
