Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Empresses of Seventh Avenue: World War II, New York City, and the Birth of American Fashion

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

Macdonell, Nancy

Hardcover

Fashion BiographiesFashion & AccessoriesGeneral World History

Publisher Price: $33.00

ISBN10: 1250288738
ISBN13: 9781250288738
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: Aug 27 2024
Pages: 368
Weight: 1.20
Height: 1.24 Width: 6.46 Depth: 9.41
Language: English

A NEW YORK TIMES MOST ANTICIPATED - Reads like a work of fiction, but remarkably, it's all true (Airmail) - In the tradition of The Barbizon and The Girls of Atomic City, fashion historian and journalist Nancy MacDonell chronicles the untold story of how the Nazi invasion of France gave rise to the American fashion industry.

Calvin Klein. Ralph Lauren. Donna Karan. Halston. Marc Jacobs. Tom Ford. Michael Kors. Tory Burch. Today, American designers are some of the biggest names in fashion, yet before World War II, they almost always worked anonymously. The industry, then centered on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan, had always looked overseas for inspiration--a polite phrase for what was often blatant copying--because style, as all the world knew, came from Paris.

But when the Nazis invaded France in 1940, the capital of fashion was cut off from the rest of the world. The story of the chaos and tragedy that followed has been told many times--but how it directly affected American fashion is largely unknown.

Defying the naysayers, New York-based designers, retailers, editors, and photographers met the moment, turning out clothes that were perfectly suited to the American way of life: sophisticated, modern, comfortable, and affordable. By the end of the war, the American Look had been firmly established as a fresh, easy elegance that combined function with style. But none of it would have happened without the influence and ingenuity of a small group of women who have largely been lost to history.

Empresses of Seventh Avenue will tell the story of how these extraordinary women put American fashion on the world stage and created the template for modern style--and how the nearly $500 billion American fashion industry, the largest in the world, could not have accrued its power and wealth without their farsightedness and determination.

1 different editions

Also available

Also from

Macdonell, Nancy

View All

Also in

Fashion & Accessories

View All