Irene Sharaff

Irene Sharaff (January 23, 1910 – August 16, 1993) was an American costume and set designer whose work spanned Broadway, Hollywood film, and ballet. Born in Boston, Massachusetts, to parents of Armenian descent, Sharaff pursued formal training at the New York School of Fine and Applied Arts, the Art Students League of New York, and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris. Early in her career she worked as a fashion illustrator and contributed to publications including Vogue and Harper's Bazaar before transitioning to stage and costume design.

Sharaff made her Broadway debut with the 1931 production of Alice in Wonderland, which starred Eva Le Gallienne. Her subsequent stage credits included As Thousands Cheer, Idiot's Delight, Lady in the Dark, Virginia, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Flower Drum Song, and Jerome Robbins' Broadway. Her costume work for The King and I in 1951, which incorporated silks from Thailand, generated a broader trend in both fashion and interior decoration, and earned her a Tony Award for Best Costume Design in 1952. She also designed for American Ballet Theatre, the New York City Ballet, and the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.

Sharaff's film career produced five Academy Awards. She received the honor for An American in Paris (1951), The King and I (1956), West Side Story (1961), Cleopatra (1963), and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Additional film credits included Meet Me in St. Louis, The Best Years of Our Lives, Guys and Dolls, Porgy and Bess, Funny Girl, Hello, Dolly!, The Other Side of Midnight, and Mommie Dearest. She also authored Broadway and Hollywood: Costumes Designed by Irene Sharaff, published by Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. in 1976.

In 1993, the Theatre Development Fund established the TDF/Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award in her name, and Sharaff herself was its inaugural recipient. The award is presented annually to a costume designer who has demonstrated distinction and mastery across theatre, film, opera, or dance over the course of a career. Following her death, Sharaff was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 1997 and into the Costume Designers Guild Hall of Fame in 1999. She died in New York City on August 16, 1993, of congestive heart failure complicated by emphysema, at the age of 83. Her collection of books, along with that of her partner Mai-Mai Sze, was bequeathed to the New York Society Library.