Fashioning and selling the American Look: Dorothy Shaver and modern art

Abstract

This article analyzes the pioneering efforts of Dorothy Shaver of Lord & Taylor department store in New York to promote American design and designers from the 1920s to the 1950s. With archival and periodical evidence, this article first situates her within a longer tradition of American fashion nationalism. It then argues that Shaver succeeded when others before her failed because she embraced the rising tide of modernism. This article examines her three major marketing promotions: modern decorative art in 1928, American designers in 1932, and finally, a cohesive “American Look” in 1945. No previous study has linked the three together to identify the common thread of modernism behind her long, well-known campaign for American design. With her success, Shaver built reputations for herself and her store as leaders in promoting American fashion, and in 1945, she ascended the last rung of the store's corporate ladder to the presidency.