"Property From The Estate Of Valentina Schlee, New York" 1990
$175
w/ 207 lots
Christie's East
1990
10 1/2" x 8 1/4"
Fine
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Valentina Nicholaevna Sanina Schlee (1 May 1899 – 14 September 1989), simply known as Valentina, was a Russian Ukrainian émigrée fashion designer and theatrical costume designer active from 1928 to the late 1950s.
Schlee opened a small couture dress house, Valentina's Gowns on Madison Avenue in 1928. Her first stage commission was costumes for Judith Anderson in 1933's Come of Age. The costumes were better received than the play, and established her reputation as a designer for the stage. Schlee dressed such actresses of the era as Lynn Fontanne, Katharine Cornell, Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson, Gertrude Lawrence, and Katharine Hepburn. Her Broadway successes included the costumes for the play The Philadelphia Story. She also dressed prominent New York society women including members of the Whitney and Vanderbilt families. In 1950 Valentina also introduced a perfume, "My Own".
Schlee's made-to-measure, flowing styles combined the intricate bias cut of Madeleine Vionnet and the grace of gowns by Alix Gres. "Simplicity survives the changes of fashion," she said in the late 1940s. "Women of chic are wearing now dresses they bought from me in 1936. Fit the century, forget the year."
Schlee was a skilled self-promoter. She modeled her own designs and rarely let her dramatic, elegant air of self-possession falter. Schlee was always impeccably turned out, earning her a mention on the International Best Dressed List.