There is a real dearth of good mail in this world. And I suppose I’m as much to blame for that as anyone. I used to send letters - long, handwritten missives to my mom and long-distance friends. I still have a stack of love letters from a diligently romantic university boyfriend. Picking up the mail was sort of exciting, the potential of finding a fat little envelope filled with scribbles and pictures. Mostly it was because it meant someone was thinking of me – you know, for longer than it took to hit “send.”

These days, mailboxes are sad receptacles reserved for bills and flyers – the only postal cockroaches to survive the e-pocalypse. So imagine my delight when, on an ordinary Tuesday afternoon, I found an honest-to-god parcel on my porch.

Behold – WORN contributor and generally remarkable human, Hailey Siracky, sent me my very own pair of second-hand Ukrainian dancing boots!

After I stopped jumping around like a maniac, I had this Great Big Idea. I’m calling it Postal Fashion. Somewhere in everyone’s closet there is a tee-shirt that never fit quite right or a pair of earrings that are too pretty to get rid of but don’t go with anything. Just stick them in an envelope and send them to someone you like.

Because mail should be this awesome.

- g.

Has there ever been a fashion designer more enigmatic than Madame Valentina Schlee, the staunch grande dame of American couture? Kohle Yohannan doesn’t think so. And after reading his book you won’t either.

Though her name is lost on many today, Valentina was certainly the most (in)famous American couturier in the early part of the 20th century. Her clothes were status symbols. With evening gowns running between $800 and $1,200 in the late 1940s, they were items that even the wealthy saved for. And save they did. Valentina dressed the most celebrated women of her era: Katharine Hepburn, Dorothy Thompson, Katharine Cornell, and her friend and lover Greta Garbo. Yet for all her accolades, Valentina has become a footnote in fashion history since shuttering her East 67th Street showroom in 1957.

In this sumptuous coffee table book, Yohannan attempts to lift the veil on the designer’s deliberately opaque biography, exposing the woman behind Valentina Gowns, Inc. The result is not only a fascinating account of the designer, but an engrossing lesson on American couture between (and slightly after) the wars. (Full disclosure: WORN senior editor Sonya Topolnisky helped Yohannan with research for this book!) Valentina begins with brief chapters on the designer’s young adulthood in Russia, most of it conjecture. She met her future husband and business partner, George Schlee, in 1919, a well-connected “wunderkind,” who fled revolutionary Russia with Valentina, moving first to Paris, then New York City. The two were heavily involved in theatre: George as a manager, Valentina a sometimes actress-dancer. And they knew Leon Bakst. The couple continued their patronage throughout their lifetime, and Valentina supplemented her made-to-measure business by designing costumes for the greatest Broadway productions of the day.

The line between dress and costume is one that Yohannan returns to repeatedly in Valentina. In a chapter entitled, “The Theater of Valentina: Costume or Couture?,” Yohannan riffs on Valentina’s belief that “clothes have little independent existence of their own.” That is to say: the woman makes the dress, not the other way around. And whether she was designing for the stage or Mrs. Astor, Valentina let the spirit of the lady shine through the character (or public caricature). First-hand accounts of a Valentina fitting are scattered liberally throughout the book, and detailed enough to inspire serious envy in this Wornette. Valentina put her clients first, although not always in the way you’d imagine. She built clothing around the woman, giving the lady what she needed – not necessarily what she ordered. Valentina masked “imperfections,” accentuated “assets,” and scoffed at requests for frills and bobbles. In short, Madame made you look like a million bucks. And her clothes lasted forever; actress-socialite Kitty Carlisle Hart wore her Valentina for 40 years. These testimonials are so convincing, Valentina can almost be excused for her wily ways and body fascism.

Indeed, the question of what looks “best” is a subjective one, and Yohannan makes a convincing case for Valentina’s design philosophy. He portrays her as someone who had a hyper-specific notion of how things should be done, but, for whatever reason, remained on the periphery of her adopted social-set, setting up a dichotomy that drives the book. She appears protective, almost matriarchal, while being completely unknowable. Her clothing gives the same impression: it’s both warm and austere. Ever true to his subject, Yohannan unfolds these contradictions subtly, in a manner that would have pleased Madame. My only qualm is that it’s too heavy to read in bed.

Valentina: American Couture and the Cult of Celebrity by Kohle Yohannan, Rizzoli Press, 2009

Reviewed by Sara Forsyth

I grew up in the middle of prairie nowhere. My hometown has 1,500 people and no traffic lights. My first Ukrainian dancing classes were held in the elementary school gym and, Ukrainian dance being wildly popular throughout Alberta, our local dance club was enormous. I remember very little about my earliest years of Ukrainian dancing. I asked my mom how old I was when I began.
“Four,” she said. “And they made you audition.”
“They did not!” I exclaimed. Not only did I have no memory of auditions, but it really just didn’t seem possible. My mom explained, “They stuck you in a room, taught you a few steps, and then decided whether to put you in Pre-Beginner or, you know… Idiot.”
“And was I an idiot?” I asked.
“No,” said my Mom. “No, you were not.”

Further discussion revealed that, while I was no slouch in the dance department, my mom felt she could have used some remedial lessons in How to Be a Dancing Mother. Sewing my first costume, she told me, was a challenge. “The club bought the material for your skirts in bulk and then sold it to us to sew ourselves. There was a lady who held meetings to make sure we were doing it right, but I never was. Eventually I wised up and paid someone else to do it for me.” At four years old, I could have cared less about my dance costume and I wailed like an ambulance when it came time for her to French-braid my hair. What I l-o-o-o-o-ved, however, was the makeup. I have no idea where this originated or why, but for the longest time one did not perform Ukrainian dancing on stage without these crazy little wings drawn out of the corners of one’s eyes. We used to call them “fishtails.”

“Of course, I never got that right, either,” said my mom. “I was a failure of a dancing mother. It’s a wonder you turned out to love it as much as you do.” But she wasn’t a failure at all. And I do love it. Today, at 20 years old, I dance with Edmonton’s Cheremosh Ukrainian Dance Company. In the years between my very first costume and now, I have worn scores of skirts, aprons, blouses, boots, and headpieces, the details of which both amaze and amuse (and sometimes annoy) me.

An embroidered blouse is a staple of any Ukrainian dance wardrobe. I have friends whose blouses were once worn by their mothers and embroidered by their grandmothers, whose costumes have generations of family history sewn within them. I’m not entirely sure where my own dancing blouses came from, though my Baba brought this one back for me when she visited Ukraine. We’re not so good at sewing in my family.

The flowery headpiece is called a Vinok. You might be thinking, “How does that stay on your head?” The answer is pain. And bobby pins. But mostly pain. If you stick in a pin and it doesn’t hurt, stick it in again.

Though I don’t feel very nostalgic about my blouses, these boots own an actual piece of my soul. They fit perfectly. I have boots that are too big. (At our last performance, I attempted to remedy this by sticking the soles of my feet to the insides with carpet tape.) I have boots that are too small, too stiff, and give me blisters - but these I can count on no matter what.

Sometimes we wear twirly skirts. The problem with this is that you have to be careful what you wear underneath them. Usually we wear a short, white slip, but this particular costume comes with bloomers. I love them. Oh, how I love them.

Ukrainian dancing has been a part of my life for so long that I have always accepted most of its details without question. I wear red boots to rehearsal and pin flowers to my hair and it’s as natural as brushing my teeth – and when I consider it, I treat most of my day-to-day fashion the same way. If I don’t feel the need to question it, nobody else will feel the need to question it either. And if they do, I won’t care.

-Hailey Siracky