Swing Capes and Spacesuits: The Fashion and Business Innovations of Eleanor Churchill, 1922-1962

As a scholar of women’s cultural history, I have spent over a decade analyzing the fashion choices of a cross-section of American women, varying by class, marital status and employment.  My most prominent project has been an analysis of the fashion designer and intellectual, Elizabeth Hawes, who’s many published works lamented the lack of American designers who worked for themselves (not in connection to Paris) and the difficulty of finding stylish yet practical clothing for women in the United States.  Hawes saw herself as a lone wolf, only one of a handful of Americans in the late 1920s to design, hand sew, and sell clothing that served both functional and luxurious purposes for those who wore them.  Through that work, I have often been curious about her claim and have since set out to research other American fashion and/or textile designers and their business practices, inspiration, and customer bases.  In early 2016, I discovered Churchill Weavers, an 85 year old company that specialized in luxury cloth and fabrics, including baby blankets and women's fashion accessories.  This paper examines how the creative and business decisions reflect larger changes in the United States at various intervals in the period between 1922 and 1962 and relies heavily on the collection of sample cloths and business records from the Churchill Weavers collection in Berea, Kentucky.  Eleanor Churchill’s commitment to innovation within the scope of the business model demonstrate a strong understanding of the relationship between fashion, economics, and gender in the mid-twentieth century.