Barbara Karinska

Varvara Jmoudsky, better known as Barbara Karinska or simply Karinska (October 3, 1886 – October 18, 1983), 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 (the first year costume design was divided into color and black and white categories) 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.

Barbara Karinska was born Varvara Andreevna Jmoudsky (Russian: Bарвара Андреевна Жмудская) in Kharkov, the Russian Empire, in 1886, to a successful textile manufacturer. She was the third and eldest female of the ten Jmoudsky siblings. Russian embroidery was an art form filled with detailed shades and colors of varying texture of stitches – some tiny and fine and others broad and rough. This was Karinska's artistic medium as a child. She studied law at the University of Kharkov and, in 1908, married Alexander Moïssenko, the son of another wealthy Kharkov industrialist. Moïssenko died in 1909 several months before the birth of their daughter Irina. In 1910, Varvara’s older brother Anatoly, owner of the moderately Socialist Kharkov newspaper UTRO (Morning), went through divorce proceedings that resulted in Varvara winning custody of his two-year-old son, Vladimir Anatolevich Jmoudsky. Vladimir and Irina were raised as brother and sister.

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