Rich in storytelling and sumptuous visual detail, Dressing America encompasses one hundred fifty years of fashion history, populated by pioneering, larger-than-life characters. Some names are familiar – Hart, Schaffner & Marx, Levi Strauss, Hattie Carnegie, Florsheim, Hicky-Freeman, [Lyman] Bloomingdale. Others are less known by their names than their innovations  – the brassiere, the modern swimsuit, leisure clothing, cotton sportswear, the Eisenhower jacket, the little black dress. Their stories will unfold from the vantage point of today’s stars – Diane von Furstenberg, Zac Posen, Donna Karan, Ralph Lauren, Isaac Mizrahi among them – who also will illuminate their own places in the continuum of fashion history.

The film reveals how the mid-19th century tailors, peddlers and tradesmen came to America armed with the tools and traditions of the ‘old country’ and laid the foundations of modern American fashion. By the latter half of the nineteenth century, the entrepreneurial skill, design artistry and imagination of these visionary immigrant men and women made average Americans the best-dressed people in the world. The generations that followed honored their forebears, built on the foundations and with contemporaneous creative energies and entrepreneurial zeal, established the world-renown American fashion industry.

Drawing upon the research of independent scholar, Phyllis Dillon, and the writing skills of Alana Newhouse, arts and culture editor of the Jewish Daily Forward, Dressing America will tell a quintessentially American story – entertaining, illuminating, and affectionate.

In addition to original filming, Dressing America will utilize an extraordinary trove of visual material including early fashion newsreels, vintage and contemporary commercials, fashion show and other archival footage, vintage print ads, archival photos and drawings, and extant early fashions in museum and other collections. Contemporary reflections, historical narrative, existing oral histories, and music will comprise the soundtrack.