Valdes also played a critical role in defining the look of cabaret singer Joyce Bryant, who was known for her four-octave range and classic records, such as "Drunk with Love" and "Love for Sale." When the two first met, Valdes suggested that exuding some sensuality would jumpstart Bryant’s career - and she was right. She even designed Maria Ellington’s "Blue Ice" wedding dress when she walked down the aisle and tied the knot with jazz singer Nat King Cole in 1948. Valdes’ sexy-but-sophisticated dresses were worn and adored by Josephine Baker, Diahann Carroll, Dorothy Dandridge, Ruby Dee, Eartha Kitt, Marlene Dietrich, and Mae West, to name a few. In her store, Valdes sold her signature low-cut, body hugging gowns, which unapologetically extenuated a woman’s curves. In 1948, Valdes opened her own boutique, called Chez Zelda, making her the first black person to own a store on Broadway in Manhattan. In the 1930s, she worked as a stock girl at an upscale boutique, where she eventually became the first black sales clerk and tailor. After graduating from Chambersburg High School in 1923, her immediate family moved to White Plains, New York, where Valdes worked at her uncle’s tailoring shop. I’m too tall and too big,'" Valdes recalled in a 1994 interview with The New York Times, but the dress she created was a perfect fit.
"She said, 'Daughter, you can’t sew for me. Her first attempt at design came when she offered to create a dress for her grandmother. The eldest of seven children, Valdes (born as Zelda Christian Barbour) was raised in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where she learned to sew from watching her grandmother’s seamstress.
"Even though she’s erroneously credited with the costume’s design, it’s been the key thing that’s led to the rediscovery of her."īut of course, there's so much more to this incredible woman’s legacy than Hefner’s vision and Playboy lifestyle. "Fitting curvaceous women was what Zelda did, so it was a perfect fit," says Nancy Deihl, author of " The Hidden History of American Fashion: Rediscovery 20th-Century Women Designers" and director of New York University’s costume studies program.
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