Long costume in turquoise net with applied silver coloured braids and turquoise sequins. The costume was made for drag queen Jennifer Hopelezz, Church Club, Amsterdam (TRC 2019.1622).A few years ago the popular Amsterdam drag queen, Jennifer Hopelezz, donated a lovely turquoise net costume (TRC 2019.1622) to the TRC collection. It featured silver coloured braids and turquoise sequins, all hand stitched to the costume by Hopelezz’s husband.

This garment was more than just glitter. It had to be both comfortable to wear and flexible and sturdy enough to dance, swing and high kick in. Designing and producing clothes for performers is not an easy task.

African-American fashion designer Zelda Wynn Valdes (1905-2001) mastered the art of creating clothes that looked glamorous and that could withstand the rigors of public performance. Her customers would eventually include stars like Josephine Baker, Mae West, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt, and opera singer Jessye Norman, among others.

Valdes was training to be a performer herself—a classical pianist, but in the 1920s found herself working in her uncle’s tailoring shop. She then worked as a stock girl in an expensive boutique, eventually becoming the shop's first black sales clerk and tailor. She opened her own dressmaking business in 1935 and never looked back.

Because many of her celebrity clients travelled and couldn’t show up for fittings, she developed the ability to make perfect fitting gowns by looking at the star’s most recent newspaper photographs. Her accomplishments included Zelda Wynn Valdes with one of her creations (photograph New York Times).designing costumes for some 82 productions of the prestigious Dance Theatre of Harlem and helping to found the National Association of Fashion Accessory Designers.

But Valdes is most famous for designing the iconic costume of Playboy bunnies (which became the first commercial uniform ever registered by the United States Patent Office).

By Shelley Anderson, 11 March 2021.