IN 1942, Claire McCardell, America’s most American designer, created her best-known dress, the denim Pop-over, so named because you could pop it on over other clothes to protect them during housework. Department-store buyers were so enamored of the Pop-over that they persuaded McCardell’s employer, Adolph Klein, to commit to a huge 75,000-yard denim order, assuring him the garment would be a sell-out hit. At the time, denim was a workingman’s textile that women rarely wore. He implored McCardell to come up with some other denim designs—just in case the order was overkill. (Klein needn’t have worried about the Pop-over: Priced at $6.95, it shattered sales expectations.)

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Persons: Claire McCardell, Adolph Klein, Klein, McCardell, Klein needn’t