Author

Maureen Footer’s work focuses on the dynamics of twentieth-century culture as revealed through its arts and creators.

Her current book, Feel the Floor: Restoring the Life and Legacy of Jazz Choreographer Buddy Bradley (Beacon Press, May 2026), rediscovers Buddy Bradley, the Harlem Renaissance chorus boy turned choreographer and teacher whose teaching and choreographic career on Broadway and London’s West End revitalized hidebound theatrical dance with tap, blazed the path to the integrated book musical, and infused jazz and tap into the vocabulary of ballet choreographers George Balanchine and Frederick Ashton, sparking the birth of neoclassical ballet.

Previous books include Dior and His Decorators: Victor Grandpierre, Georges Geffroy and the New Look (Vendome 2018), an examination of the intersection and influence of haute couture and high design in Paris after World War II. Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams (Rizzoli, 2021), a study of the intersection of French couture values and post-war American society. Dior: The Legendary 30, avenue Montaigne (Rizzoli, 2022) traces the history of the famous couture house through its architecture. George Stacey and the Creation of American Chic (Rizzoli, 2014), chronicles the transformation of American design as the country came of age culturally, socially, and economically.

Ms. Footer has spoken at the Sorbonne, Sotheby’s, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Institute of Classical Architecture, the French Heritage Society, Winterthur, the Huntington Museum, Parsons School of Design (Paris), and the New York School of Interior Design.

Her work has been covered in The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Vanity Fair, The New York Times, the Times Literary Supplement, Vogue, Le Figaro, Corriere della Sera, Harper’s Bazaar, and La Gazette de Drouot.

She holds degrees from Wellesley College and Columbia University and studied 18th century interior design at the Ecole du Louvre in Paris. A lifelong balletomane, Ms. Footer sits on the boards of the New York City Ballet, the Jerome Robbins Dance Division of the New York Public Library, and the American Friends of the Paris Opera Ballet.