IT’S IN THE BAGS!
Judith Leiber shares the secrets behind her sparkliest designs
IF not for a war, Judith Leiber would have made lipsticks. Intent on a career in cosmetics, she’d left Hungary to study chemistry in London. But as Hitler’s troops advanced in 1939, her parents called her home.
“I never went back [to school],” the 96-year-old designer tells The Post. “We were Jewish, so it became very difficult to do anything that would require going to university.” Instead, she became an apprentice at a handbag factory. Not long after that, she fell in love with an American soldier and painter, Gerson “Gus” Leiber, who brought her to New York and helped her start a Swarovski-encrusted empire.
Seven decades and 3,500 handbags later, there’s “Judith Leiber: Crafting a New York Story,” a new show at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD). Curator Samantha De Tillio rounded up nearly 100 Leiber bags, including the minaudières (translation: small, decorative handbags) beloved by actresses and first ladies alike. And then there are the bigger bags, including the alligator tote Leiber took to the supermarket.
“It was featured at Bendel,” her 95-year-old husband says proudly. He remembers the day they met on the street in a bombed-out Budapest. “I said, ‘That’s the girl!’ ” he recalls, laughing: “I was the luckiest guy in the world. I still am!”
The Leibers have been married 71 years and have no children. They do, however, have a museum: the Leiber Collection, housed in a Palladian-style edifice down the road from their home in East Hampton, LI. Speaking by phone, they shared the stories behind some of the bags you’ll see in the MAD show.
The chatelaine
This 1967 minaudière was born of a factory accident in Italy, Gus Leiber says: “They shipped the [metal bags] to us and they were unsalable — the electroplating wasn’t even and there were pockmarks all over. It was Judy’s idea to add crystals. It started a whole new career!”
“The Purple Quilt”
Judith Leiber designed this bag after a detail from her friend Faith Ringgold’s quilt, which was based on “The Color Purple.” The Leibers bought Ringgold’s “Tar Beach” quilt, but because it didn’t fit in their apartment, they donated it to the Guggenheim Museum.
Asparagus minaudière
An old Chinese ceramic of a bunch of asparagus, plus the actual vegetables the couple grows in their garden, inspired this 1996 bag. “People liked the idea that I made animals, fruits, tomatoes,” Judith says. “This one was very attractive. I wear it once in a while.”
The penguin
“The penguin was inspired by a friend of mine,” Judith says. “She was married to an Arctic explorer. When she came back from the Arctic, she said I should make a penguin bag, and I did. We sold a great many of them.”