Dress, the history of fashion, is a production of iHeart Radio.

With over 7 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common.

Every day, we all get dressed. Welcome to Dress, the history of fashion, a podcast where we

explore the who, what, when, of why we wear. We are fashion historians and your host,

Cassidy Zachary, and April Callahan. Dress listeners in September 2022, when the exhibit

in America, Alexa, on a fashion closes at the Met, it will have been a full year of celebrating

the sheer talent, breadth, and history of American fashion design.

Dressed episode, one of which we are re-earing for you today.

Nearly everything. We hope you enjoy. So, Cass, the subject of our show today has been

described by people who knew her as the following. Hypnotically elegant, dexterously elusive,

narcissistic, utterly terrifying, and deliciously wicked.

I know. We're going, we're going there today. Oh yeah.

So, the woman who earned herself the moniker as the sartorial sorceress of East 67th street

was a renowned beauty and also a pathological liar. She also just happens to be the most

successful independent American female designer of the 20th century, but she was not American.

That's right. Today, we examine the life and career of one of the most outlandish characters

American fashion has ever seen. Her story and her persona were larger than life,

and whether people who knew her liked her or not, it seems the one thing that they did

agree on is that she was a captivating, rarer, obvious, or rare bird. She is undoubtedly one of

American fashion's greats, but I'm guessing most of our listeners have never heard about the

tempestuous genius Valentina Schley, known professionally as Valentina. I am also betting on this,

which means that the story of Valentina Nicolayevna Sandina's birth in the key

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