Zelda Barbour Wynn Valdes (June 28, 1901 - September 26, 2001) was an American fashion designer and costumer. She is credited for designing the original

Playboy Bunny A Playboy Bunny is a waitress who works at a Playboy Club and selected through standardized training. Their costumes were made up of lingerie, inspired by the tuxedo-wearing Playboy rabbit mascot. This costume consisted of a strapless corset te ...

waitress costumes.

Biography

Zelda Valdes was born Zelda Christian Barbour in

Chambersburg, Pennsylvania Chambersburg is a borough in and the county seat of Franklin County, in the South Central region of Pennsylvania, United States. It is in the Cumberland Valley, which is part of the Great Appalachian Valley, and north of Maryland and the Mas ...

, and grew up in

Charlotte, North Carolina Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

. She trained as a classical pianist at the Catholic Conservatory of Music. In the early 1920s, Valdes started to work in the tailoring shop of her uncle in

White Plains, New York (Always Faithful) , image_seal = WhitePlainsSeal.png , seal_link = , subdivision_type = List of sovereign states, Country , subdivision_name = , subdivision_type1 = U.S. state, State , su ...

. Around the same time, Valdes began working as a stock girl at a high-end boutique. Eventually, she 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." Despite the struggles she experienced in her early experiences in the alteration industry, Valdes and her sister, Chez Valdes, opened the first African American owned Manhattan boutique in 1948.

Career

Beginning in 1935, she had her own dressmaking business in

. She eventually oversaw ladies alterations, and developed her own dressmaking clientele. In 1948, Valdes opened "Zelda Wynn," her design and dressmaking studio, on Broadway (in what is now Washington Heights on Broadway and West 158th Street). Valdes said that her shop was the first black-owned business on Broadway. She sold her dresses to movie star

Dorothy Dandridge Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965) was an American actress, singer and dancer. She is the first African-American film star to be nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress, which was for her performance in ''Ca ...

, opera diva

Jessye Norman Jessye Mae Norman (September 15, 1945 – September 30, 2019) was an American opera singer and recitalist. She was able to perform dramatic soprano roles, but refused to be limited to that voice type. A commanding presence on operatic, concert ...

, and singer

Gladys Knight Gladys Maria Knight (born May 28, 1944), known as the "Empress of Soul", is an American singer, actress and businesswoman. A seven-time Grammy Award-winner, Knight recorded hits through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s with her family group Gladys Kn ...

. Valdes also dressed the entire bridal party for the 1948 wedding of Marie Ellington, aka

Maria Cole Maria Cole ( Hawkins; August 1, 1922 – July 10, 2012) was an American jazz singer and the wife of singer Nat King Cole; mother of the singer Natalie Cole. Early life Cole was born in Boston and was the niece of Charlotte Hawkins Brown. Her ...

and

Nat King Cole Nathaniel Adams Coles (March 17, 1919 – February 15, 1965), known professionally as Nat King Cole, was an American singer, jazz pianist, and actor. Cole's music career began after he dropped out of school at the age of 15, and continued f ...

. Additional celebrity clients included

Josephine Baker Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; naturalised French Joséphine Baker; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an American-born French dancer, singer and actress. Her career was centered primarily in Europe, mostly in her adopted Fran ...

Mae West Mae West (born Mary Jane West; August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American stage and film actress, playwright, screenwriter, singer, and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned over seven decades. She was known for her breezy ...

Ella Fitzgerald Ella Jane Fitzgerald (April 25, 1917June 15, 1996) was an American jazz singer, sometimes referred to as the "First Lady of Song", "Queen of Jazz", and "Lady Ella". She was noted for her purity of tone, impeccable diction, phrasing, timing, in ...

Eartha Kitt Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Ba ...

, and

Marian Anderson Marian Anderson (February 27, 1897April 8, 1993) was an American contralto. She performed a wide range of music, from opera to Spiritual (music), spirituals. Anderson performed with renowned orchestras in major concert and recital venues throu ...

, Constance Bennet, Diahann Carroll, Dorothy Dandridge, Ruby Dee, Aretha Franklin, and Gladys Knight. Her designing relationship with Fitzgerald was mostly long-distance - she told

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

in 1994 that she only fitted Fitzgerald once in 12 years, and did most of her designing for her based on her imagination. Valdes also created a new sexier image for singer

Joyce Bryant Joyce Bryant (October 14, 1927 – November 20, 2022) was an American singer, dancer, and civil rights activist who achieved fame in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a theater and nightclub performer. With her signature silver hair and tight me ...

who ''

LIFE Magazine ''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest ma ...

'' dubbed "the Black Marilyn Monroe." Etikett Kleid Ella Fitzgerald

In the 1950s, she moved "Chez Zelda" to 151 57th Street in Midtown. She had a staff of nine dressmakers and charged almost $1,000 per couture gown.

Playboy Bunny suit

Her role in glamorizing women caught the attention of Playboy's

Hugh Hefner Hugh Marston Hefner (April 9, 1926 – September 27, 2017) was an American magazine publisher. He was the founder and editor-in-chief of ''Playboy'' magazine, a publication with revealing photographs and articles which provoked charges of obsc ...

who commissioned Zelda to design bunny costumes for the

Playboy Playmate A Playmate is a female model featured in the centerfold/gatefold of ''Playboy'' magazine as Playmate of the Month (PMOTM). The PMOTM's pictorial includes nude photographs and a centerfold poster, along with a pictorial biography and the "Playm ...

s, an idea suggested by

Victor Lownes Victor Aubrey Lownes III (April 17, 1928 – January 11, 2017) was an executive for HMH Publishing Company Inc., later known as Playboy Enterprises, from 1955 through the early 1980s. Soon after he met Hugh Hefner in 1954, Hefner founded ''Playbo ...

. She created the original

costume, which was presented at the opening of the first

Playboy Club The Playboy Club was initially a chain of nightclubs and resorts owned and operated by Playboy Enterprises. The first Playboy Club opened in Chicago in 1960. Each club generally featured a Living Room, a Playmate Bar, a Dining Room, and a Club R ...

in Chicago, IL on February 29, 1960. It was also the first commercial uniform to be registered by the

United States Patent and Trademark Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexa ...

Activism through fashion

Beginning in the 1960s, Valdes directed the Fashion and Design Workshop of the Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited and Associated Community Teams (HARYOU-ACT). Valdes taught costume designing skills and facilitated fabric donations to the student workshops. She was one of the founders of the National Association of Fashion Accessory Designers, an industry group intended to promote black talent in the fashion industry. This group was established with the sponsorship of the

National Council of Negro Women The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) is a nonprofit organization founded in 1935 with the mission to advance the opportunities and the quality of life for African-American women, their families, and communities. Mary McLeod Bethune, the f ...

Later career

In 1970, Arthur Mitchell asked Valdes to design costumes for his new company, the

Dance Theatre of Harlem Dance Theatre of Harlem (DTH) is an American professional ballet company and school based in Harlem, New York City. It was founded in 1969 under the directorship of Arthur Mitchell and later partnered with Karel Shook. Milton Rosenstock served a ...

. By 1992, Valdes would design costumes for eighty-two productions. She closed her business in 1989 but continued to work with the Dance Theatre of Harlem until her death in 2001 at the age of 100.

References