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

Dedicated followers of the WORN blog know that we do not allow many art forms to escape our rigorous sartorial analysis, and film is no exception – in fact, it may be our preferred medium. So just imagine our excitement when we heard about the Fashion in Film Festival! An entire weekend where people discuss Michael Caine’s suits in Get Carter and William Klein’s sheet metal dresses in Qui Êtes-Vous, Polly Maggoo? Our hearts were a-twitter.

Marketa Uhlirova is the co-founder, director, and curator of FFF. She also lectures in fashion history and cultural studies at Central Saint Martins College in London, among other prestigious pursuits. But FFF didn’t start off as a festival; it began as a single presentation in 2006 in London and New York.

“It became apparent that there was no platform –at least no lively exhibition platform – where fashion and costume in film were studied with some sort of regularity or system,” said Marketa. “In our area, there was nowhere to provoke questions or a debate, apart from the odd conference.” The presentation, entitled “Between Stigma and Enigma,” grew into the bi-annual festival simply because, as Marketa says, they had amassed too much great material not to.

The second Fashion in Film Festival, “If Looks Could Kill” held in 2008, examined themes of disguise, delinquency, and the corruption of beauty in films dealing with crime and violence. Purple Noon, a French thriller from 1960 remade in 1999 as The Talented Mr. Ripley, is a portrayal of a gentleman-murderer whose Gucci slippers, white jeans, and tailored shirts represent the class to which he’s assimilated into and the twisted crimes he will later commit. Just as a black, shiny PVC raincoat comes to symbolize a knife-wielding slasher in The Bird with the Crystal Plumage.

Indeed, fashion in film often stands in for something other than its face value. But as Marketa points out, sometimes trendy or “pretty” costumes can deceptively straightforward.

“All costumes, and particularly the subtle ones, strongly establish a character. In fact, I’d say that obvious fashionability of a character can sometimes cast them as a bit one-dimensional,” says Marketa. “This idea is brilliantly inverted in Hitchcock’s Rear Window where the immaculate Lisa (Grace Kelly) is constantly fighting against the image of perfection and shallowness that Jeff (Jimmy Stewart) has of her, and that her costuming seems to reconfirm. Yet she gradually proves that “there is more to her.” She is highly resourceful and pretty smart (even though Hitchcock shows this as a very unthreatening kind of “female intuition”). What’s most brilliant, [is that] she also uses her understanding of fashion and dress to gain insights into the murder investigation that the cocky Jeff has no access to.”

The next Fashion in Film Festival will begin touring in early 2010. The theme is still undecided, but if you’re into whip-smart fashion commentary and terrific films – and I know you are – you’ll join me in asking Marketa to please bring this thing to Toronto. Please?

-Sara Forsyth

My bias toward oral histories is this: they can be the most nostalgic, fluffy, self-important saccharin out there. Contributors, usually in the twilight of their influence, see this little trip down memory lane as means to remind the world just how special they – and their friends – once were, and thereby, to quote Woody Allen, “romanticize it all out of proportion.” (NB. This phenomenon is especially prevalent among books concerning rock movements and fashion people. Trust. I’ve read more than two.)

Now, enter The Stephen Sprouse Book, part sumptuous coffee table flipper, part oral biography of the late tastemaker. This could very easily be a book about how great The Mudd Club was. And it is, a little. What sets it apart is the sheer volume of Sprouse relics reprinted in its pages; there are dozens of Polaroids of friends Debbie Harry, Steven Meisel, and Karen Bjornson (to name a few). His illustrations for Halston are included, as is the diaphanous “scan line” dress he designed for Harry to wear in Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” video.

Personally, I feel the most insightful additions are the letters and sketches from Stephen’s childhood, which was, according to Roger Padilha’s essay in the beginning of the book, perfectly “idyllic.” These early sketches are especially remarkable, not only for their resemblance to the clothes he would later design, but because they present a fully conceived aesthetic. At 13 years old, Stephen designed sunglasses, gloves, and jewellery for his “line” – he even imagined hairstyles for each look (sketching the front and the back thank you very much). My favourite item from Stephen’s early years is a facsimile of the descriptions and notes for his Spring 1967 collection. A glance at number 10 on the list confirms the tween’s precocious nature. “A white satin tent over white satin bloomers. The collar on the tent and the cuffs of the bloomers are heavily beaded in white crystal. (I had this designed several months before I saw Oscar De la Renta’s in Women’s Wear Daily.)”

The book continues with chapters dedicated to key periods in Stephen’s life: his start at Halston, the downtown culture of post-punk New York, first collections, “failures,” artwork, and his globally coveted collaboration with Louis Vuitton in 2000 (yes, the graffiti bags). The only text is the aforementioned recollections by Sprouse’s friends and colleagues. Their voices recapture the mood of the period, but do not provide any context (you get that in Roger Padilha’s essay). It’s not a terribly confusing effect, though I often went back to the essay to reorient myself in the timeline (this may be because Sprouse went in and out of business several times during his career). People and disputes are mentioned without explanation, which is not always a bad thing as it prompts the reader to do a little research. Me, I had to figure out who this Kezia Keeble was and why it was controversial for Teri Toye to open Sprouse’s Fall/Winter 1984 collection.

Although Stephen’s people sometimes slide into flowery worship, especially Teri and Tammy Toye, the majority of their quips offer insight into the man and his designs. Ellin Saltzman, former director of fashion at Saks Fifth Avenue and Bergdorfs, says, “There wasn’t an extra button anyplace. I don’t remember buttons. I remember some zippers, but there weren’t any extraneous details.” Quotes such as this, placed alongside photographs of Sprouse’s shifts, overcoats, and enlarged sketches create a complete image of his design sensibility. They tell us what kind of person wore Stephen Sprouse, who they wanted to be, and how his clothes made them feel.

Like any successful retrospective, The Stephen Sprouse Book is carefully curated. The Padilha brothers carefully balanced the text, photographs, sketches, and facsimiles and published a visually engaging and highly informative book worthy of the man. Though I was not overly familiar with Sprouse’s work (I knew him as they guy Marc Jacobs liked), I now see his influence everywhere. Sometimes those romanticizers are right; I mean, the term “genius” exists for a reason, n’est-ce pas?

by Roger and Mauricio Padilha, Rizzoli Press, 2009
reviewed by Sara Forsyth
helmet by downstairs neighbour Karen

Order The Stephen Sprouse Book from Amazon.com

His tailor shop is below street level, in an underground strip mall, which gives Mr. Arabpour’s cramped business the appearance of only being open “late-night.” Burly men file in with their entourage, and he, elfin in comparison, reaches up to greet them with three kisses.

This is the sum of the action in Final Fitting, a portrait of the 80-year-old Arabpour, tailor to the stars of Iranian politics and religion for 58 years. Director Reza Haeri bounces back and forth from Mr. Arabpour’s reception area to his back room, where he cuts fabric and muses on everything from garment construction to his famous clientele to why one should not wear trousers to prayer (plumber’s crack!).

Mr. Arabpour has outfitted everyone from the late Ayatollah Khomeini, leader of the 1979 Iranian revolution, to popular former president Mohammad Khatami and current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei. You get the impression he treated them all as he does in the film: jumping up to wrap his arms around a man’s waist, faceplanting into his belly, reading the tape, and shaking his head, muttering, “God preserve me.”

Mr. Arabpour lives the city of Qom, a holy city of the Shiite Muslims and home to one of the largest religious schools in Iran. Although a strict dress code still exists, changes to Iran’s cultural climate over the past decade can be measured by Mr. Arabpour’s creations. Theology students now wear trousers, (and some wear jeans) and there are several accoutrements, such as turbans and abbas (robes) that have adjusted to fit these modern times. Labadehs (long, sheer robes worn over one’s ensemble), for instance, have gone from having one or two pockets to nine – even ayatollahs need a place for their Blackberry.

In a mere 30 minutes, however, Final Fitting manages goes beyond the garments to reveal a delicate portrait of an old man – a man who is traditional, modest, and accepts change with the indifferent resignation of someone who’s seen it all. It leaves you feeling you’ve trespassed upon his quiet life – and for that reason alone, Final Fitting is essential viewing.

Sara Forsyth