how Michelle Obama Helped Vanquish the Baby Doll Dress: Double X

Quoted via Double X

When I was pregnant, finding relatively stylish maternity clothes was a breeze: An excellent pair of dark blue, straight-leg Earl Jeans endured until the last week of my pregnancy. Two Japanese Weekend wrap dresses carried me through work meetings, date nights, family dinners, and holiday parties.

I never thought I would have trouble buying flattering clothes once my waist was restored. But two-and-a-half years after my daughter was born, I struggled to find tailored dresses in a sea of baby dolls, goddesses, empire waists, and wide A-lines. Why must it be so difficult to locate dresses cut for women neither childish nor with child?

Ours is not the first generation of grown women to deal with the tyranny of the tent dress, and with its implicitly infantilizing aesthetic. In the 1930s, designer Claire McCardell became famous creating fast-selling waistless dresses. According to Patricia Mears, the deputy director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, McCardell used children’s clothing as her inspiration, tweaking the designs to make them more womanly. “She would go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, look at their collection of kids’ clothes, and make patterns with a gathered neck, long empire sleeves, spaghetti strap ties, so you could tie them lower for a fitted torso,” Mears says. more