Elizabeth Evitz Dickinson

And what was so revolutionary about this dress is this one manufacturer said, my God, it has no front, it has no back.

Where do you zip it?

It had no structure.

This dress would be called the monastic dress.

Her famous monastic dress was almost like a monk's cassock because you could belt it and fit it to your own body.

No one knew she made it because her name wasn't on the label.

Because at that time, designers did not have their names on the labels of clothes.

It was either the department store or it was the manufacturer.

Claire was among just a handful of designers and editors who were the last to see Paris before it was taken over by the Nazis.

The war was officially on in Europe.

You know, it was that moment where everybody was waiting for what Hitler would do.

And so Hattie's like, whoa, be damned, we're going.

And Hattie was Jewish and her family's like, you're not going to Europe right now.

This is insanity.

Ugh, Hattie, you nut.

I'm obsessed with you.

And she reluctantly stayed behind and Claire went.

And she wrote these just poignant letters home about what it was like to see Paris as this buildup to war was happening.

A few months later, Paris went dark and it was gone.

And one of the things that Claire started doing at Townley was she was moving very far away from the haute couture idea.