Playing With Plaid: Claire McCardell’s 1956 Halter Dress
Claire McCardell enjoyed making summer dresses in the early 1950s, a time when more Americans had more leisure time and more places to enjoy it. Think of the new suburbs and their patios. McCardell made dresses for ready-to-wear from Townley Frocks and this one is an interesting take on a plaid found in the collection of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
You can do a lot with plaids, and she decided to center the darkest of the stripes at the center front, have two of them meet up, and then positioned that same stripe along the edge of the halter as it comes up over the shoulder. This draws the eye to the bodice and thus to the face of the woman who got to wear it. It’s usually the best bet with a multi-color plaid, but ponder the possibilities when you are sewing. The dress is loose in front and then the belt pulls the dress to the waist. Of course, this means the waistline size could vary and you could tighten the belt to a comfortable fit. While some skirt designs miter the plaids, McCardell lets the plaid’s fullness take up all the space it needs, a nod to the embrace of hips in the 1950s.
With the belt, you created the popular small waist and full skirt combination which had been fashionably since the end of post-war austerity and the coming of Christian Dior’s New Look in 1947. In fact, Dior also had dresses that were very loose and then belted in to mark the waist. But there is something in the plaid, the cotton, the halter, the general air of sportiness that marked McCardell’s American Look.
You can find the Costume Institute online here: https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search#!?department=8
