Russian Emigre Has Designs on Second Career

Shelley Komarov always wanted to be a fashion designer, and she has achieved her dream not once, but twice.

The first time was in her native Russia, where in the 1970s she became chief wardrobe designer for the House of Fashion of Leningrad, creating costumes for the Kirov Ballet, the Russian Opera Company and the National Theater of Russia.

The second time was in this country. A resident of Santa Monica, the 35-year-old emigre has re-established her career in the competitive world of Hollywood films and fashion.

Designs for Stage, TV

Komarov designs costumes for local theater productions such as Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard” at the Pan Andreas Theater in West Hollywood, and television, including 100 outfits for NBC’s miniseries, “Peter the Great.”

And her hand-beaded and intricately embroidered designs, adapted from fabled imperial gowns she studied at the Hermitage Museum, are carried by exclusive boutiques in Beverly Hills and San Francisco.

Her life, she says, has been a series of “lucky breaks.”

Well-to-do Family

Komarov grew up in the Soviet Union in a fairly well-to-do family. Her father was a teacher of history and geography; her mother was an executive for a state-owned clothing manufacturer.

As a girl, Komarov was given a small sewing machine and she learned to make garments of all kinds. “I always wanted to be a designer, always,” she said.

But Komarov’s mother did not want her to go into the fashion business, and instead encouraged her to pursue scientific studies.

Komarov comes from a family of scientists--she lists among her relatives the late George B. Kistiakowsky, a chemist who emigrated from the Soviet Union and served on the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb for the United States during World War II.

She majored in economics and engineering and in 1972 received her master of science degree from the Leningrad Industrial Engineering College. Her graduate work won second prize that year for the best scientific research at the school, she said.

“But that was the end of that,” she said. “I never worked a day in that field.”

Soon after graduation, Komarov decided to take some accessories she had designed to the state-operated Leningrad House of Fashion to ask for advice on pricing them. Friends who had seen her creations had offered to buy them, but she had no idea what to charge, Komarov said.

Designer at 22

When she went to the elite design establishment, an official took one look at her designs and took them to the president of the institution, who in turn asked for more examples of her work. When she returned with her samples 10 days later, she said, she was accepted as a designer. She was 22.

“Our customers were only celebrities--theater and movie people, government officials and their wives,” she said. “When you see people on the street, that doesn’t mean Russia has no fashion. Russians have everything, but unfortunately not for all the people.”

As part of her work at the fashion house, Komarov was asked to do research on the elaborate gowns that were worn at the Russian court until the Revolution in 1917 ended such extravagances. She was given access to the magnificent collection of about 3,000 historic garments at one of the world’s largest museums, the Hermitage in Leningrad, where she studied the fine laces, embroidery, beading and lavish sewing techniques used to cater to the czars and czarinas of the 18th and 19th centuries.

Komarov and her husband, a mathematician and university professor, had enviable jobs and financial security in the Soviet Union, but in the late 1970s they decided to seek a new life and greater freedom in the United States, she said.

“My husband and I were never members of the Communist Party and to do a lot of things, you have to be (members),” she said. “They would never let me go with my collections, they would never let me travel. . . . The whole situation in Russia was very depressing to us and we decided to leave.”

The decision was a difficult one, she said, because it meant leaving their families. “We don’t know if we will ever see them again. My husband’s mother has died since we left.”

It took two years to get visas. From the time they applied to emigrate, she said, they were personae non grata in their homeland.

The Komarovs had to leave most of their possessions behind when they left Russia in 1978, and their remaining money and jewelry was stolen when they stopped in Italy, leaving them and their young son virtually penniless.

“I will never forget this,” she said. “I became overnight another person. There we were, just us and a 5-year-old kid. We were concerned about just food and a place to live, that’s it. We worried about survival.”

Job Offer

Fortunately, Komarov’s husband received a job offer from Stanford University and they moved to San Jose, where Russian friends helped them get settled.

“That was definitely not a great place for me to try to be in the fashion industry,” she said, recalling that her first job offer was a position as a cleaning lady. “But that was OK. I didn’t expect things to happen immediately.”

Although her English was not yet good, she decided to hold out for a better job.

The Komarovs moved to Santa Monica. Her husband works as a computer scientist and she became a West Coast representative for Eduard Nakhamkin, whose New York galleries serve as a showcase for Russian artists, including the commercially successful Chemiakin. Then Komarov formed her own company, representing international artists, and this gave her business experience and practice in speaking English, she said.

Through contacts in the art world, she met producer Larry Schiller, who hired her to do historical research on 17th-Century Russian costumes for his television miniseries, “Peter the Great.” She designed 100 costumes for the project but was unable to go to Russia for the filming because she could not obtain Soviet permission, she said.

It is important to pay attention to detail in historic costume design, she said, noting that some productions have mistakenly used the lace that was designed for tablecloths on costumes.

Refurbished Costumes

Komarov has refurbished rented costumes for the current production of “The Cherry Orchard” at the Pan Andreas Theater. This job involved such tasks as replacing the silk flowers on a hat with more lifelike blossoms that would have been used at the time the drama was set. She also designed an embroidered Russian shirt because even Western Costume, the big rental company, had nothing like it.

Komarov has taught costume design courses at Stanford and at the Otis Art Institute of Parsons School of Design. In March, she will teach a course for USC’s continuing education program.

In addition to her other projects, she designs luxurious embroidered and beaded dresses that sell for as much as $2,000 on Rodeo Drive, she said.

But Komarov owns only one beaded dress of her own design, a blue silk outfit that she wore to last year’s Academy Awards.

“The only reason I have it is that it has a tiny hole on the shoulder so I couldn’t sell it,” she said. “I don’t have time to make things for myself.”