Zelda Wynn Valdes

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Zelda Barbour Wynn Valdes , also Zelda Wynn, Zelda Valdes , (born June 28, 1905 in Chambersburg , Pennsylvania , † September 26, 2001 ) was an American fashion designer and costume designer . She was the first African American woman to open a store on Broadway in New York , designing luxurious wardrobes for celebrity customers. She is considered - presumably incorrectly - as the designer of the costume for the Playboy Bunnys .

biography

Joyce Bryant in a Valdes dress (1953) - Photo: Carl Van Vechten

Family, youth and career beginnings

Zelda Wynn Valdes was born as Zelda Christian Barbour and was the oldest of seven children in her family. She grew up in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, then a rural town of about 10,000 people about 200 miles from New York. Her father James W. Barbour worked as a cook for the railroad, her mother Blanche M., née Christian, was a housewife. While at school, Zelda learned to play the piano at the Catholic Conservatory of Music . In 1923 she graduated from high school .

Zelda copied the tailoring from her mother, her grandmother and her grandmother's seamstress , and she made the first patterns out of newspaper to dress her dolls. She designed her first real dress for her grandmother, who was of the opinion that the granddaughter could not tailor a dress for her because she (the grandmother) was too tall and fat. The dress should have fitted perfectly and was the pride of the wearer. It is said that she was buried there.

From 1923 on, Zelda worked in her uncle's tailoring shop in White Plains , New York , where the whole family had moved. They improved their income by acting as temporary help worked in an upscale fashion store with a predominantly white clientele. Within a few months her talent was recognized there, and she became the first African-American saleswoman and seamstress in the company. At that time she had her first private customers, for whom she sewed clothes. She also took on orders for interior design . In 1927 she married her first husband, Charlie Wynn, who died in the mid-1930s. In 1935, with the assistance of her sister Mary, she opened her own business in White Plains and became a member of the Colored Merchants Business League of White Plains . She regularly took part in fashion shows with her models.

Fashion designer in Manhattan

In 1948, Zelda opened the Zelda Wynn store on the corner of Broadway and W. 158th Street, making it the first African-American female shopkeeper on Broadway, according to her own statement. The reason for the move to New York, some 50 kilometers away, was that their customers increasingly came from there. She specialized in the design and manufacture of luxurious cloakrooms such as bridal outfits, cocktail and evening dresses . Her customers were mainly Afro-American, while the majority of white customers only bought jewelry and accessories from her . At that time she was married to Oscar Valdes, who helped her run the business.

Zelda Valdes received national attention in 1948 when she designed ice blue satin dresses for the bride and seven bridesmaids of Marie Ellington's wedding to Nat King Cole . New York high society attended this social event , regardless of skin color. She later became the godmother of Natalie Cole , the daughter of the Coles. In the same year she took part in the celebrations for New York's Golden Jubilee , which was celebrated with a parade, exhibitions and various fashion shows: only because of complaints against racial discrimination was an African-American model recently accepted into a fashion show, for which there was no dress . Zelda Valdes quickly created a white evening dress for the young woman that was described as "stunning".

In 1959, Zelda Valdes moved her business, now called Chez Zelda , to 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan , an area of ​​posh shops near Carnegie Hall . She employed up to nine dressmakers at the time and charged around $ 1,000 per dress.

It was increasingly popular with celebrity customers, including Dorothy Dandridge , Jessye Norman , Gladys Knight , Josephine Baker , Eartha Kitt , Ruby Dee , Diahann Carroll , Aretha Franklin , Mae West , Marian Anderson and Edna Mae Robinson (wife of boxer Sugar Ray Robinson ) . For twelve years she supplied Ella Fitzgerald's wardrobe ; she was proud of the fact that she had only measured once on this customer, who never had time, but that the clothes always fit because she had estimated Fitzgerald's changed measurements from photos: “Gee, she's gotten larger. “The singer Constance Bennett wore a dress by“ our Zelda ”, as she was often called when she was introduced to the Queen at a reception. In 1957, Louis Armstrong ordered four dresses from her for Velma Middleton , the singer of his band, for $ 4,250 .

For the popular black singer Joyce Bryant , known as "black Marilyn Monroe", she created a personal, erotic style of clothing in the early 1950s, as it was her specialty to design fashion from exquisite materials with a perfect fit for curvy women and have it tailored. Constance CR White, former fashion director at Elle , wrote: "She definitely helped to popularize and define the look of a woman's curvy silhouette, but it was always elegant."

Her style and technique as well as her prominent clientele moved Hugh Hefner to commission Zelda Wynn Valdes with the production of the costumes for the Playboy Bunnys - the waitresses in the Playboy clubs . It was the first commercial garment to be patented and trademarked in the United States . In 1962, the Playboy Club opened in New York, and at least 35 of the bunny costumes came from Zelda's workshop. Fashion historians disagree as to whether the design of the bunny costume can be traced back to Wynn Valdes herself, whether she only had it sewn, or whether her creative part in it was downplayed for racist reasons. She herself always only spoke of the fact that she had been commissioned to have the costumes tailored. Zelda Valdes organized several fashion shows at New York's Playboy Club , the first in 1964; According to Hefner's conviction, there was no racial segregation either among the customers or the employees in the club (African-American bunnies were called bronze bunnies ).

A dress that Zelda Valdes designed for Ella Fitzgerald is in the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington , as well as a dress that she had made for Eartha Kitt. Nichelle Gainer, author of the book Vintage Black Glamor , sees Zelda Valdes as a “true pioneer” in fashion. Previously, black designers were only perceived as "seamstresses" and were staged in photos. Zelda Wynn Valdes herself said in an interview with the New York Times in 1994 : "I just had a God-given talent for making people beautiful."

Cultural and social work

From the 1960s onwards, Zelda Valdes led the Fashion and Design Workshop of the Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited and Associated Community Teams (HARYOU-ACT), a social organization that was part of an anti-poverty program funded by the government. She personally led courses and organized donations of materials. In 1968 Valdes was one of the co-founders of the Harlem Youth Symphony Orchestra .

With Mary McLeod Bethune , Valdes was also one of the founders of the National Association of Fashion Accessory Designers (NAFAD) to promote African-American fashion designers and was President of the New York Section from 1949 to 1959; the group was supported by the National Council of Negro Women . The Nafads organized an annual convention starting in 1950 and honored America's Best Dressed Negro Women . At the convention in 1964 in New York's Waldorf Astoria , this honor was bestowed upon Josephine Baker , who accepted her award from the hand of opera singer Leontyne Price . For the fashion show, Zelda Valdes designed a green dress named J'ai Deux Amours (title of a song by Baker) and dedicated it to the winner.

From 1970 Zelda Valdes created costumes for the newly founded Dance Theater of Harlem by Arthur Mitchell , the only classical ballet company in the world with exclusively black dancers, supplementing or replacing the traditional pink for the dancers with other colors in order to better accentuate their skin tones . Until 1992 she was involved in 82 productions of the company. While she closed her business in 1989, she remained productive for the dance theater until her death in 2001, which she also supported financially.

literature

  • Nancy Deihl: The Hidden History of American Fashion: Rediscovering 20th-Century Women Designers . Bloomsbury Academic, 2018, ISBN 978-1-350-00104-6 , pp. 223-236 (English).
  • Nichelle Gainer: Vintage Black Glamor . Rocket 88, 2015, ISBN 978-1-906615-90-1 (English).
  • Constance CR White: How to Slay: Inspiration from the Queens and Kings of Black Style . Rizzoli, 2018, ISBN 978-0-8478-6138-5 (English).

Web links

Commons : Zelda Wynn Valdes  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The statement on the website reapeatingsislands.com that her father was a José Valdés of Cuban origin, her mother was an African American named Ann Barbour, and the couple met in Havana in 1902 , is incorrect according to research by Nancy Deihl. Some of the other information provided there is also incorrect.
  2. ↑ Tanisha C. Ford: Zelda Wynn Valdes. In: The New York Times . Retrieved February 9, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c Deihl, Hidden History , p. 224.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f Princess Gabbara: How Zelda Wynn Valdes Redefined Fashion. In: shondaland. April 25, 2018, accessed February 9, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Maiysha Kai: The Legend of Zelda (Wynn Valdes). In: The Glow Up. May 17, 2018, accessed February 9, 2019 .
  6. ↑ a b c d e f Herb Boyd: Zelda Wynn Valdes, a dress designer of the stars. In: amsterdamnews.com. February 20, 2014, accessed February 8, 2019 .
  7. ↑ a b c Deihl, Hidden History , p. 225.
  8. ↑ a b Nancy Deihl: Zelda Wynn Valdes: costume and fashion designer. In: blog.oup.com. March 31, 2015, accessed February 9, 2019 .
  9. ↑ Deihl, Hidden History , S. 269th
  10. ↑ Deihl, Hidden History , S. 226th
  11. ^ A b c Samuel Momodu: Zelda Barbour Wynn Valdes (1901-2001). In: BlackPast. January 30, 2019, accessed February 9, 2019 .
  12. ↑ Nancy Deihl: The Hidden History of American fashion. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018, ISBN 978-1-350-00048-3 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  13. ^ Fashionable game changer: Zelda Wynn Valdes. In: ebony.com. March 26, 2012, accessed February 9, 2019 .
  14. ↑ a b Deihl, Hidden History , p. 229.
  15. ↑ a b c d Deihl, Hidden History , p. 233.
  16. ↑ a b Dominique Norman: The Influential Designer Behind the Playboy Bunny Uniform. In: observer.com. October 5, 2017, accessed February 9, 2019 .
  17. ↑ a b c Deihl, Hidden History , p. 235.
  18. ↑ Deihl, Hidden History , S. 232nd
  19. ↑ US ballet pioneer Arthur Mitchell has died. In: deutschlandfunkkultur.de. July 23, 2014, accessed February 9, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Valdes, Zelda Wynn
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Valdes, Zelda Barbour Wynn (full name); Wynn, Zelda (alternative name); Valdes, Zelda (alternative name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American fashion and costume designer
DATE OF BIRTH June 28, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Chambersburg
DATE OF DEATH September 26, 2001