Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Nice book in great condition. Pages in excellent condition. No notes or highlighting. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Beautiful talented and entirely self-created Valentina (1899- 1990) was one of the most important and intriguing fashion designers of the twentieth century. Emigrating to New York from Russia in the early 1920s with her husband and business manager George Schlee Valentina’s early career as an ac- tress brought her into collaboration with some of the great names and talents of the stage and screen including Leon Bakst and Michel Fokine of the Ballets Russes Katharine Cornell (with whom she shared the stage) and screen god- dess Greta Garbo-with whom Valentina and George Schlee shared a much-talked-about lifelong liaison. The first American celebrity fashion designer of the twentieth century Valentina lived on equal social footing with the high society and movie star clients she dressed-a formi- dable claim when one considers that Norma Shearer. Marlene Dietrich Katharine Hepburn Gloria Swanson as well as gen- erations of Vanderbilts and Whitneys were all loyal Valentina customers. Presciently aware of the power of the media. Val- entina’s meteoric rise to fame and fortune in the 1940s helped to elevate the social status of the American fashion designer