Empresses of Seventh Avenue Nancy MacDonell

“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. 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.”