Valentina Gowns was American luxury fashion brand, founded in 1928 by Russian immigrant Valentina Nicholaevna SANINA SCHLEE (American, Russian born, 1899-1989). The venture was backed by Wall Street financier and attorney, Eustace SELIGMAN, represented by famed publicist Eleanor LAMBERT. For many years the “face” of the brand was Valentina’s friend (and possible lover) Greta GARBO. The brand was active until the end of Valentina’s marriage, when in 1957 George SCHLEE left his wife for GARBO. Valentina SANINA, born in Kyiv in 1899, fled the Russian Revolution to Europe, where she met millionaire, producer and financier George SCHLEE, who became her husband and took young girl under his wing. After several years of travelling through Europe, the couple emigrated to America in 1923. Settled with her husband in New York City, Valentina twice in the mid-1920s tried and failed to start a fashion business. But George SCHLEE was successful in the stock market, so he began to produce and finance theatre productions, which gave his wife increasing exposure as a designer. Valentina attended his events dressed in her own designs, and was seen and recognized by elite circles of New York society, many members of which began to ask her to make them clothing. Thus in 1928 her personal brand was born. It was an overnight success. SCHLEE managed the business, the brand’s workrooms staffed by members of his own extended family, and designer herself became her own model. In the early 1930s, she began to design costumes for theatre and opera, by the second half of the 1930s she had handpicked an A-list clientele. The list included actresses like Lillian GISH, Jennifer JONES, and Norma SHEARER, Greta GARBO and Gloria SWANSON, as well as wealthy society ladies from VANDERBILT and WHITNEY families. Greta GARBO became a living advertisement for her brand – for many years she wore Valentina’s creations in films, on red carpets, and even in her personal life. By the 1940s Valentina was designing costumes for the films. Perhaps the best proof that she really did have professional theatre training would be her seemingly innate ability to define a character on stage with costume. One of her most famous designs was the white crepe gown Katherine Hepburn wore in the 1939 production “The Philadelphia Story”. Like her costume work Valentina’s apparel designs were deceptively simple. Her clothing was frequently compared with that of Madame Grès and Madeleine Vionnet. In an era of feminine details and elaborate ornamentation, her work was modern, monochromatic, and sometimes austere. Her models were sleekly draped, often with floor-skimming skirts, dramatic necklines and backs. The evening gowns, cocktail dresses and daywear she created were all made to measure with a lot of fittings and finished by hand in a manner of French haute couture. Known for her absolute obsession with detail, she had incredibly high standards for her designs, for the work that would carry her name. She refused to have more than two hundred clients at any time, and she demanded that the ladies she designed for should understand that the designer knew better than the client how to make a piece. Despite the fact that her works were very expensive (about $600 for a single dress in the early 1950s), and in most cases she preferred to design entire wardrobes, and usually did it, but they were so iconic, so influential, that in the 1940s it became common to refer to a simple, unadorned dress as “a poor man’s Valentina”. Her clients were devoted to her, to her brand, and many became personal friends, as it happened with Greta GARBO. Though Valentina never wanted for work through thirty years in business, the real problems began when Valentina’s husband SCHLEE, who was her business manager, became Garbo’s advisor and then left his wife for Greta. They didn’t divorced, but Valentina retired and closed her brand in 1957. Valentina herself passed away almost 30 years later, in 1989.