By the latter half of the 1950s there was a backlash in opposition to the New Look which might usually be uncomfortable and impractical. Balenciaga responded with the creation of the ‘sack gown’ which lacked a waist and is fairly self-explanatory! The sack dress was an enormous departure from the design consensus of the time and attracted a great deal of criticism.
In its versatile workability, the suit describes historic continuity between the exhausting-working, denim-trouser-wearing World War II riveters, and the glass-ceiling-cracking businesswomen of the 1970s. Smithsonian curator Nancy Davis factors out that, attribute of McCardell fashions, the suit on show is properly worn. Women purchased McCardell to put on repeatedly, for years, she says, and the designer was identified to hang-out the textiles mills, appropriating sturdy materials normally passed over for garments. Still, her incorporation of hard-working fabrics like denim into playful, trendy showed that utility didn’t replace panache. …