Zelda Wynn Valdes

Life

Valdes grew up in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania. She began her professional career working in her uncle's White Plains, New York tailoring shop. Around the same time, Valdes began working as a stock girl at a high-end boutique. She eventually worked her way up to selling and making alterations, becoming the shop's first black sales clerk and tailor. Looking back, Valdes said "It wasn't a pleasant time, but the idea was to see what I could do."

In 1948, Valdes opened the first African American owned boutique in Manhattan on Broadway and West 158th Street. She sold her dresses to movie star Dorothy Dandridge, opera diva Jessye Norman, and singer Gladys Knight. Valdes created the infamous playboy bunny costume in the 1950s.

In the 1950s, she moved "Chez Zelda" to 57th street in midtown.

Valdes's celebrity clients included Josephine Baker, Mae West, Ella Fitzgerald, Dorothy Dandridge, Eartha Kitt, and Marian Anderson. According to Valdes, "I only fit [Ella Fitzgerald] once in 12 years. I had to do everything by imagination for her. She liked fancy clothes with beads and appliques. I'd just look at the papers and say, 'Gee, she's gotten larger.'" Valdes also created a new sexier image for singer Joyce Bryant who LIFE Magazine dubbed “the Black Marilyn Monroe."

Valdes also dressed the entire bridal party for the 1948 wedding of Marie Ellington and Nat King Cole.

She was one of the founders of the National Association of Fashion Accessory Designers, an industry group intended to promote black design professionals.

In 1970, Arthur Mitchell asked Valdes to design costumes for his new company, the Dance Theater of Harlem. By 1992, Valdes would design costumes for eighty-two productions. She closed her business in 1989 but continued to work with the Dance Theater of Harlem until her death in 2001 at the age of 96. Fashion legend Zelda Wynn Valdes was the first black designer and costumer to open her own shop She was the first black-owned business on Broadway in 1948. She began developing her skills by learning from her grandmother and working for her uncle’s tailoring business. Her designs have been worn by famous entertainers such as Dorothy Dandridge, Josephine Baker,Joyce Bryant, Marian Anderson, Josephine Baker, Ella Fitzgerald, Mae West, Ruby Dee, Eartha Kitt and Sarah Vaughan and many others. Zelda had a gift of making women look beautiful with her designs that hugged the body and a woman’s shape . She once told a New York Times reporter that she had a God given talent on making women look good. In 1948, Ms. Wynn would open her own boutique in Manhattan in what is now Washington Heights on Broadway and West 158th Street. She would later move ‘Chez Zelda’ midtown to 57th street. She was president of the New York chapter of NAFAD, the National Association of Fashion and Accessory Designers, an organization of Black designers that was founded by Mary McLeod Bethune. The Pennsylvania-native’s key role in glamorizing women caught the attention of Playboy’s Hugh Hefner and he commissioned Zelda to design the first-ever Playboy Bunny costumes.