Sylviane Sydney-Kitchen
Editor's Note: NCA has many retired members with fantastic histories! Pam Markel, immediate past president of the NCA, is contributing a new column to NCA Today that highlights these retired members. In this edition, her third, she describes the career of Sylviane Sydney-Kitchen. Click here to read Pam's previous column, about Lorraine Brown.
Sylviane Sydney-Kitchen, retired owner of At Sylviane’s Costume Designer, began her journey with the National Costumers Association in 1982. Sylvaine was born in Nice, France and came to the United States in her early twenties.
Sylviane came from a line of theater lovers in France. Her father worked for the Film Festival in France. She remembers going backstage with him during productions. Her fascination with big makeup cases and beautiful costumes encouraged her to pursue a career in makeup and fashion design. “I made up my mind then that someday I would make people beautiful with those makeup cases, and I fell in love with the costumes at the Opera”, Sylviane says.
At 18, she won the Miss Nice, France contest. A few years later, she made the voyage to America. She couldn’t speak a word of English when she arrived in New York City.
Sylviane went to work for a cosmetic firm in New York and later decided to move to Dallas Texas, and then on to Galveston, Texas.
Galveston had a Dickens on the Strand festival. Sylviane couldn’t find a Victorian Costume, so she made her own. People stopped her as she walked up and down the street, telling her how beautiful her costume was, wanting to know where she got it. This gave her the idea to open her own costume shop.
Costumes from Sylviane's The World and the Beauties
Sylviane’s love for the glamour of costuming drew her to costuming for pageants. Her first beauty pageant to costume was the Miss Easter Pageant, then the Miss Mardi Gras Pageant and the Miss Texas Pageant in Galveston. She then moved on to promoting the “Mrs. All Nations Pageant.” She was the President and Founder of Sylviane Productions, Galveston, Texas.
She has distinguished herself by winning several national awards with her costumes and working with Vicky Sanchez in “Night Game,” which was filmed in Galveston.
In 1992, Sylviane hosted the National Costumers Association National Convention. Sylviane’s “The World and the Beauties,” (see photos above), won the Judges Award on Spectacular and Masquerade Division in the Showcase competition.
“I love the NCA because it is like a big family.” She loves the friends she made along the way, the continuing education and all the gems she has gleaned that made her business better.
- Taken from articles in the Costumer Magazine in 1989, 1991 and 1992.
