Born: 1 May 1899, Ukraine
Died: 14 September 1989
Country most active: United States
Also known as: Valentina Nicholaevna Sanina Schlee
Ukrainian-born American designer Valentina Nicholaevna Sanina Schlee, known simply as Valentina, created clothing for both fashion and theater from 1928 into the late 1950s. Fleeing the Russian empire following the 1917 October Revolution, she arrived in New York City in 1923 and soon became popular with the social elite “bright young people” of the Roaring ’20s. She opened her couture dress house in 1928, with her first costume design role following in 1933. On stage and off, she designed clothes for prominent actresses including Lynn Fontanne, Katharine Cornell, Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson, Gertrude Lawrence and Katharine Hepburn, along with socialites and other celebrities. Valentina: American Couture and the Cult of Celebrity, a large retrospective exhibition of her work, went on display in 2009 at the Museum of the City of New York.
“Simplicity survives the changes of fashion,” she declared in the late 1940s. “Women of chic are wearing now dresses they bought from me in 1936. Fit the century, forget the year.”