Valentina
Valentina Sanina Nicholaevna was born in Kiev, Russia, on May 1, 1904. Upon her arrival in America in 1923 she attracted attention in New York wearing her own designs. Interest in her unusual clothes led to the founding of Valentina Gowns, Inc. in 1928. Valentina Gowns, Inc. was backed by the Wall Street lawyer and financier Eustace Seligman; with George Schlee, Valentina’s husband as business manager.
Valentina successfully designed for the theatre. Valentina’s early training as a performing artist played a critical role in the formation of her talent for costuming actors. Within the first decade of business, Valentina’s clients ranged from Park Avenue matrons to stars of the stage and silver screen. Valentina soon claimed Millicent Rogers, Lillian Gish, Gloria Swanson, Katharine Hepburn, Jennifer Jones and even White House wives among her loyal followers.
From the early 1930s on, Valentina designed costumes for Broadway productions, operas, and (by the early 1940s) Hollywood films. Valentina dressed and accessorized the world’s most sought-after opera divas of the mid-twentieth century. Her stage and screen credits include longstanding working relations with Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard, Ginger Rogers, and Jennifer Jones, to name a few. Her designs for, and association with, the reclusive film star Greta Garbo inspired endless gossip, but perhaps Valentina’s most highly publicized work was for Katharine Hepburn, whom she dressed in 1939 for her starring role in the stage version of The Philadelphia Story.
In 1957, Valentina Gowns, Inc. closed its doors. Valentina died in New York City in 1989 at the age of ninety years old.
