Debut biographer Dickinson digs up buried treasure in this essential and inspiring account.
The early-20th-century woman designer who revolutionized fashion—then disappeared.
“She really invented sportswear, which is this country’s major contribution to fashion,” said Calvin Klein of McCardell in 1981. Now, thanks to Dickinson’s excellent, delightfully readable biography, this extraordinary woman may finally be more widely given credit for that. In a prologue set in 1955, just three years before McCardell’s untimely death at 52, we see the designer giving Betty Friedan, then “an eager young journalist,” a tour of her innovations. “She’d developed leotards and leggings, brought hoodies, denim, and leather into womenswear, ushered the swimsuit into its contemporary form, included pockets in her clothes, and made the wrap dress a wardrobe staple.” Though “we owe much of what hangs in our closets to Claire McCardell,” writes Dickinson, it’s her contemporary (and rival) Christian Dior’s name we remember. Interestingly, Dior also died at 52 around the same time, but he had had the foresight to appoint a successor to manage his brand, a young fellow named Yves Saint Laurent. McCardell’s failure to do so meant that her label closed down shortly after her death. “Stitching Claire McCardell’s name back onto the apparel she pioneered is not merely a history lesson in provenance; it is a vital and timely reminder of a designer, and a movement, that was always about far more than clothes.” McCardell’s achievement was founded on unconventional choices. She chose not to have children and did not marry until she was nearly 40. She was ferociously private, rarely discussing her personal life in interviews, which makes Dickinson’s deeply researched portrait all the more impressive, illuminating a whole network of women who supported each other in rigidly sexist times. One great example: During World War II, the chemical used to bleach cotton became unavailable; McCardell learned this from textile mill owner Hope Skillman, who apologized for the “dingy off-white” material she was producing as a result. “McCardell didn’t think it was so bad; she saw it as a creamy, mellow color and began using it, helping establish a trend for the color now known as ‘bone.’”
Debut biographer Dickinson digs up buried treasure in this essential and inspiring account.Pub Date: June 17, 2025
ISBN: 9781668045237
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: March 21, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2025
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.
A coffee-table book celebrates Michelle Obama’s sense of fashion.
Illustrated with hundreds of full-color photographs, Obama’s chatty latest book begins with some school portraits from the author’s childhood in Chicago and fond memories of back-to-school shopping at Sears, then jumps into the intricacies of clothing oneself as the spouse of a presidential candidate and as the first lady. “People looked forward to the outfits, and once I got their attention, they listened to what I had to say. This is the soft power of fashion,” she says. Obama is grateful and frank about all the help she got along the way, and the volume includes a long section written by her primary wardrobe stylist, Koop—28 years old when she first took the job—and shorter sections by makeup artists and several hair stylists, who worked with wigs and hair extensions as Obama transitioned back to her natural hair, and grew out her bangs, at the end of her husband’s second term. Many of the designers of the author’s gowns, notably Jason Wu, who designed several of her more striking outfits, also contribute appreciative memories. Besides candid and more formal photographs, the volume features many sketches of her gowns by their designers, closeups on details of those gowns, and magazine covers from Better Homes & Gardens to Vogue. The author writes that as a Black woman, “I was under a particularly white-hot glare, constantly appraised for whether my outfits were ‘acceptable’ and ‘appropriate,’ the color of my skin somehow inviting even more judgment than the color of my dresses.” Overall, though, this is generally a canny, upbeat volume, with little in the way of surprising revelations.
Not so deep, but a delightful tip of the hat to the pleasures—and power—of glamour.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2025
ISBN: 9780593800706
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 7, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2026
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.
A former New York City dancer reflects on her zesty heyday in the 1970s.
Discovered on a Manhattan street in 2020 and introduced on Stanton’s Humans of New York Instagram page, Johnson, then 76, shares her dynamic history as a “fiercely independent” Black burlesque dancer who used the stage name Tanqueray and became a celebrated fixture in midtown adult theaters. “I was the only black girl making white girl money,” she boasts, telling a vibrant story about sex and struggle in a bygone era. Frank and unapologetic, Johnson vividly captures aspects of her former life as a stage seductress shimmying to blues tracks during 18-minute sets or sewing lingerie for plus-sized dancers. Though her work was far from the Broadway shows she dreamed about, it eventually became all about the nightly hustle to simply survive. Her anecdotes are humorous, heartfelt, and supremely captivating, recounted with the passion of a true survivor and the acerbic wit of a weathered, street-wise New Yorker. She shares stories of growing up in an abusive household in Albany in the 1940s, a teenage pregnancy, and prison time for robbery as nonchalantly as she recalls selling rhinestone G-strings to prostitutes to make them sparkle in the headlights of passing cars. Complemented by an array of revealing personal photographs, the narrative alternates between heartfelt nostalgia about the seedier side of Manhattan’s go-go scene and funny quips about her unconventional stage performances. Encounters with a variety of hardworking dancers, drag queens, and pimps, plus an account of the complexities of a first love with a drug-addled hustler, fill out the memoir with personality and candor. With a narrative assist from Stanton, the result is a consistently titillating and often moving story of human struggle as well as an insider glimpse into the days when Times Square was considered the Big Apple’s gloriously unpolished underbelly. The book also includes Yee’s lush watercolor illustrations.
A blissfully vicarious, heartfelt glimpse into the life of a Manhattan burlesque dancer.Pub Date: July 12, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-250-27827-2
Page Count: 192
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: July 27, 2022
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