This is a biography of fashion designer Claire McCardell (1905-1958), the pioneering creator of American sportswear, the wearable, useful and affordable alternative to Paris fashion. The authors show how McCardell's comfort first ideology fostered pride and belief in American fashion, and how she favoured self wrap-and-tie styles rather than corsetry, shoulder pads, and heavy construction. In this illustrated tribute McCardell is pictured wearing her own clothes, and specially commissioned photographs of McCardell garments from the archives of New York's Fashion Institute of Technology reveal her craftmanship.