page_title: Barbara Karinska
section_title: United States
hierarchical_section_title: Barbara Karinska / United States
caption_attribution_description: English: Original Karinska label in a costume for the New York City Ballet's production of "Scotch Symphony." Worn by dancers Suzanne Farrell and Kyra Nichols. From the Barbara Karinska Collection at Ailina Dance Archives.
context_page_description: Varvara Jmoudsky, better known as Barbara Karinska or simply Karinska, was costumer of the New York City Ballet, and the first costume designer ever to win the Capezio Dance Award, for costumes "of visual beauty for the spectator and complete delight for the dancer".
  Along with Dorothy Jeakins, she won the 1948 Oscar for color costume design for Joan of Arc, and was nominated in 1952 for the Samuel Goldwyn musical Hans Christian Andersen, starring Danny Kaye. She divided her time between homes in Manhattan, Sandisfield, Massachusetts, and Domrémy-la-Pucelle, France, the birthplace of Joan of Arc. For the stage, she designed the costumes for George Balanchine's production of Tchaikovsky's The Nutcracker, among others.
context_section_description: Balanchine, who had relocated to the United States, had given Karinska an unused room at the fledgling School of American Ballet in New York City for her to work. From this space she collaborated with Salvador Dalí on Venusberg from Tannheuser for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo—recently relocated in New York—in the fall of 1939. Through Dalí, Karinska made friends with the Spanish Consul and confided to him her nephew's case. Vladimir received instructions to make his way to the Spanish border where he would be provided safe transit to a ship leaving Lisbon for New York, via Havana. Emaciated and sickly, he arrived to New York in January 1941 where he was smothered by his aunts hugs and kisses. His new apartment awaited him at the mansion that Karinska was renting on E. 56th Street.
  Karinska at that time was ridding herself of her partners, “The Princess and the Baron”, from a fly by night venture in haute-couture. She kept the mansion; the name Karinska Inc. and the parquet floor that the Baron had had brought to New York from a family castle in France.
  Shortly after Vlady's arrival they began executing the designs of Karinska's arch rival Irene Sharaff for Gypsy Rose Lee. Miss Lee believed that Karinska understood the impact of her performance and enhanced her ability to deliver her unique style of burlesque to the audience. Vladimir hit it off well with Sharaff and made it possible for the two rivals to work together.
  But rivalry soon ensued between Vladimir and Kermit Love who designed Agnes de Mille’s Rodeo for the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. Vladimir and Love were both makers of masks and hard costumes. But the rivalry was short lived as Vladimir was drafted into the United States Army.
  Since the German occupation of Paris, Karinska had lost contact with her daughter, Irène, who was living in Sarthe at the family residence of her husband, Xavier François. It was Vladimir the soldier who found Irène days before the liberation of Paris and from his nearby barracks wrote to Karinska special delivery informing her that she was a grandmother twice over. Vladimir entered the American Army in 1943 as Private Vladimir Jmoudsky and returned to civilian life in 1945 as Lieutenant Lawrence Vlady.
  Back to work with Karinska, Vlady brought to the great costumer something she had never known: American military order, discipline and administration. The 56th Street mansion was soon abandoned; Karinska Inc. was liquidated and the Karinska-Vlady enterprise, KARINSKA Stage and Art Inc., made its debut in a rather unsightly loft on W. 44th Street where Karinska’s costumes, always delivered at the last moment, could be walked over to the theaters if needs be. The affordable rent of the dusty atelier permitted Karinska to purchase a townhouse on E. 63rd St. (where the Baron's parquet floor was installed); a house in Joan of Arc’s home town, Domrémy-la-Pucelle, in the Lorraine region of Eastern France, and a George Washington period house that she named "Saint Joan Hill" in Sandisfield, Massachusetts.
  During the war years, while Karinska took extensive leaves to supervise costume production for motion pictures in Hollywood, she would rent her 56th St. mansion and her staff to ballet and theater companies, ventures that always ended in misunderstandings. With Vlady permanently settled in New York, he would run the business while Karinska worked in Hollywood. Under this arrangement she won her Oscar for Joan of Arc and her Oscar nomination for Hans Christian Andersen. These were the “Golden Years”. The label “KARINSKA Stage and Art Inc.” was sewn into costumes for Ice Shows, Musicals, legitimate theater, motion pictures, lyric opera and the most important for the Lady from Kharkov –Ballet.
  At the end of the German occupation of Paris, Irène Karinska reopened her costume atelier and worked successfully until retirement in the 1970s. Due to the fact that Irène's work was often credited as "Costumes par Karinska", researchers have credited much of her work to her mother. An example of the confusion between mother and daughter was found in a
caption: Original Karinska label in a costume for the New York City Ballet's production of "Scotch Symphony." Worn by dancers Suzanne Farrell and Kyra Nichols. From the Barbara Karinska Collection at Ailina Dance Archives.
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