Memories of Madame Karinska.(costume designer for New York City Ballet)

In the realm of costume creation and execution, Barbara Karinska was the quintessential artist and George Balanchine's choice collaborator. She was uncannily attuned to Mr. B's deepest thoughts and feelings about ballets and ballerinas and translated them from passion into peau de soie. Whatever communication transpired between them must have been a mixture of language and extrasensory perception, and the results were a stunning materialization--his great choreographic vision enhanced and fulfilled in fabric.

Karinska made legions of glorious garments for ballerinas, premier danseurs, the corps de ballet, divas, and actors portraying all sorts of characters--mice, men, queens, goddesses, and bumpkins for the movies, theater, musicals, opera, and ballet. I was lucky that a few of her woven wonders were made for me.

I first saw Madame Karinska backstage one evening at the City Center while she was directing a last-minute costume delivery. A trim woman in a navy-blue suit, with a short crop of lavender hair, was pointing in various directions to her staff. A team of men and women with costumes folded over their arms was bustling about, searching for the dressing areas. The costumes were for immediate use. And for the most part, the seams world be sewn, not merely pinned, in place. I learned that there was never time to get everything done. This was in 1953, and I was a brand-new member of the New York City Ballet--a wide-eyed 15-year-old who had never witnessed such a spectacle before. Yet what made the biggest impression on me was Karinska's lavender hair. I wondered if the beatify parlor had made a mistake. I was soon to learn that there were no mistakes with this extraordinary woman.

Later that year I was sent down to Karinska's shop for a fitting. Up to that time I had worn oilier girls' costumes, but now I was in the corps of a new work by Lew Christensen called Con Amore. After I had stripped to tights and leotard, my measurements were taken and recorded in a black notebook; not only waist, hips, and bust, but also inseam, head girth, and wrist. Then a long, tulle, yellow-ocher skirt was pinned at my waist and a bodice was positioned over it with little tugs, adjusting the center of me to the center of it. All of lilts was done by a kindly Russian woman. When Karinska appeared at the doorway, her assistant announced, "This is Kent." Karinska nodded nonchalantly and walked over to inspect me, wearing her usual navy blue suit and sensible shoes, her lavender hair adding a touch of wit. Her eye had detected an imperfection on my costume. Scrunching up a bit of fabric with her fingertips, she fiddled and twisted, giving instructions in rapid Russian. I perceived that I was more object than subject. The subject was "tutu." But just as she left the room, she gave ore a small encouraging smile.

Ten years later--when I went in for my Bugaku fitting--Karinska and I were old friends. She had made many costumes for me, including those I wore in The Seven Deadly Sins and Stars and Stripes and even a "secret" white tutu for Swan Lake to pack for our Australian tour, just in ease I had to dance Odette. Now, for this Asian occasion, Balanchine came with me to the shop. As the waistband of my tutu was secured, I looked down and gasped at the beauty of the details. The skirt formed a giant fuschia chrysanthemum. At the tip of each pointed petal was a dewy rhinestone. The paler pink bodice had a few thin gold ...