Julie Elber

The monastic is a dress that would go over your head.

So we might think of it as a tent dress.

I've been on eBay a lot in the last 10 years.

Let's just put it that way.

Wow.

This is a beautiful dress that's probably from 1949, 1950, that is kind of a Grecian version of the monastic dress.

And then has these beautiful leather belts that she designed as well.

And so it's really chic, classy.

You could wear it out in New York tonight.

who might be a little bloated some days, you know?

And then when she did the monastic dress, it got knocked off so much that her boss, Henry Geist, had a complete nervous breakdown.

So she, ironically, having the most successful dress on 7th Avenue, she got fired.

She ended up working unhappily with Hattie Carnegie for a while.

Hattie took all the credit, but she had this wonderful stable of designers.

Claire and her letters would get all excited because somebody from the Times wanted to talk to her and then instead Miss Carnegie...

stepped in and did the interview.

So there were loggerheads quite a bit.

She eventually left right around the time that the war was being waged in Paris and they couldn't go back to Paris anymore.

And so then she was brought back into Townley.

The new head of Townley frocks cleverly lured Claire back.