Hattie Carnegie, who couldn’t sew or cut a pattern, dictated the tastes of American women for 30 years, running a multimillion-dollar fashion empire out of her East Forty-Ninth Street store until her death in 1956.

Carnegie didn’t give American women pioneering garments as her contemporaries—say, Dior and Balenciaga—did. Instead, she offered them confidence in the form of well-made, beautiful clothes that, for decades, were proudly enjoyed and widely-copied.

Through a series of fortuitous connections, Carnegie went from a teenage job at Macy’s to working as milliner, shopkeeper, and wholesaler. At her business’s high point, her empire oversaw custom and ready-to-wear operations, as well as hats, perfumes, cosmetics, and costume jewelry. She employed the most renowned American designers of her time, including Norman Norell, Claire McCardell, and Pauline Trigère.

Regular trips to Paris inspired the foundation for a custom-order business devoted to creating exceptional garments. Simultaneously, Carnegie ran an even more profitable ready-to-wear wholesale business, and is considered the first to begin selling a more affordable line to department stores.

Despite the fact that she couldn’t design herself, Carnegie did enact the ultimate transformation – of herself. Born in 1880s Vienna as Henrietta Kanengeiser, Carnegie, by her 20s, had taken her last name as a nod to Andrew Carnegie, then the wealthiest man in America, and had chosen “Hattie” for its aristocratic ring. With a remarkable drive, she fashioned herself into a modern, wealthy arbiter of taste, someone whom upper-crust women like Tallulah Bankhead and Mrs. William Randolph Hearst trusted to outfit them.

Carnegie’s clothes enhanced a woman’s beauty, rather than eclipse it. “The little Carnegie suit” – her forte – featured a jacket with a nipped waist, paired with a skirt with rounded hips. Throughout her Seventh Avenue reign, Carnegie gave American women a lens through which they could see their own tastes and aspirations.