Claire McCardell, Georgia O’Keeffe, and the Hidden History of Fashion Design

When Georgia O’Keeffe took a rafting trip through Glen Canyon in 1961, it was a Claire McCardell dress that she wore. O’Keeffe owned several McCardell dresses, admiring their modernity and functionality. From the 1930s through the 1950s, Claire McCardell shattered cultural norms around women’s clothes and redefined the “American look.” Join biographer Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson for a look at how McCardell defied expectations to become what one contemporary critic has described as “the most important and underappreciated designer of the 20th Century.”

This event is free to attend. Please register in advance. Reach email contact@gokm.org or call 505-496-1000 for assistance with event registration.

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About the Speaker

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson is the author of the critically acclaimed biography, Claire McCardell: The Designer Who Set Women Free, releasing June 17, 2025. An award-winning journalist and author, Dickinson’s writing has been widely published in The New York Times, Harper’s, The New Yorker, The Southern Review, and The Washington Post Magazine, among many others. She’s a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowship and her work has earned recognition in anthologies such as The Best American Essays and been awarded Maryland’s prestigious Mary Sawyers Imboden Prize for literature. Dickinson teaches writing in the Graphic Design MFA program at the Maryland Institute College of Art. She lives in Baltimore with her husband and daughter.

Photo of Claire McCardell Courtesy of the McCardell Family.