American Fashion, Adrian, Mainbocher, McCardell, Norell, & Trigère
Lee, Sarah Tomerlin. American Fashion, The Life and Lines of Adrian, Mainbocher, McCardell, Norell, and Trigère. First Edition. 1975. Book is in very good condition; dust jacket is in very good minus condition—jacket spine shows light discoloration and fading to the ends, and there is a taped repair to the front cover.
Produced by the Fashion Institute of Technology, this massive, little-known book is divine. It is divided into five one hundred-page sections for each of the designers, and seeks to trace how their upbringings and philosophies affect their designs and ideas of American fashion. The book contains hundreds of b & w and color images, courtesy of Horst, Avedon, Dahl-Wolfe, Hoyningen-Huene, Penn, Rawlings, Steichen, Eric, Bouché, Eula, and Willaumez. Models include C.Z. Guest, Joan Crawford, the Duchess of Windsor (in her famous Mainbocher wedding dress), and many others.
“Before Picasso began to make all those crazy noses, he knew how to draw a straight line. You can’t begin to break rules unless you know them.”
--Pauline Trigère