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No Mere Bagatelles is the name of the biography of Judith Leiber. A bagatelle is a knickknack, bauble or trinket, and a Leiber creation is indeed something truly special. Many celebrities, such as opera diva Beverly Sills collected Judith Leiber handbags the way others collect paintings and sculptures. (Sills is reported to have had over 200.) Designer Geoffrey Beene once stated that Judith Leiber’s bags were “objets d’art”.
The idea for these beaded “trifles” happened in 1967 when Judith Leiber received a shipment of tarnished gold-plated metal boxes. To make use of the tainted shipment, she covered them with thousands of crystals. These were so popular that even after she received a new shipment of unmarked metal boxes, she continued to apply crystals to their surface and also designed many different shapes. While smaller than her small handbags, they are very collectible.
Judith Leiber was born Judith Peto in Budapest, Hungary in 1939. She became an apprentice at the Hungarian Handbag Guild and the first woman Meister (master) to be recognized by the Guild for her skill and workmanship. She once commented, “I used to make handbags for the Americans in exchange for dollars. After the Germans and the Russians, there was very little left in Hungary.”
After World War II, she met Gerson Leiber in Budapest when he was a sergeant in the US Army. By then, she was already an experienced handbag designer. He wanted to become a painter. They married and moved to New York.
In New York, she started her career by working for several well-known labels. “I learned there how to make a diversified collection,” Ms. Leiber mentioned. “In Europe at the time there were only about six handbag styles.” During her thirty year career she was credited with designing more than three thousand.
In 1963, together with her husband, Judith Leiber launched her own business that became one of the most successful in the history of American fashion. She was awarded numerous accolades, including the Handbag Designer of the Year Award of 1992, and the Council of Fashion Designers of America Lifetime Achievement Award of 1994.
Judith Leiber sold her company in 1990, which still operates from New York. Her fans include everyone from celebrities—Bette Midler, Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Hurley, Naomi Campbell, and Cindy Crawford—to former First Ladies Barbara Bush, Nancy Reagan and Hillary Rodham Clinton, who often carry her bags to diplomatic and social events around the world ---to her fans at AYPToday. You are able to see many of their works in the Leiber museum. http://www.leibermuseum.org. Certainly no mere bagatelles!
Happy Bidding!
Liz
www.ayptoday.com
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