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Spotlight On
JUDITH LEIBER
continued
[image of purse]
[image caption: Leiber's signature "minaudières," elegant rhinestone
encrusted evening bags]

leathers and all fabrics that are interesting
-whatever is exciting says Leiber. "We 
quilt it, we pleat it, we shirr it, whatever
is timely."
As the daughter of a well-to-do Hun-
garian-Jewish family that fled their home-
land just steps ahead of the Nazis, Leiber
has never lost her European roots, nor
her fierce dedication to the tradition of 
craftsmanship she learned as a young
handbag apprentice in Budapest. Her 
exquisite taste she credits to her mother, 
who was born in Vienna (where, Leiber
explains, "the styling was very upscale and
high grade") and was an avid handbag
collector.

After the war, Judith and her American
GI husband Gerson Leiber, whom Judith
calls Gus, moved to Manhattan, where
Gus pursued an artistic career (his prints
now grace collections in the Met and the
Museum of Modern Art) and Judith
found work in the garment district mak-
ing, of course, handbags. By the time
she set up her own shop in 1963, evening
clutches designed by her were being car-
ried by the likes of Mamie Eisenhower. 
(Continuing the tradition, First Ladies
Nancy Reagan and Barbara Bush both 
carried Judith Leibers to their respective
husbands' Inaugural Balls.)

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But despite a deep appreciation for the 
opportunities afforded by her adopted
country ("I've been very, very lucky," she 
says. "America has been very good to 
me."), Leiber continues to do things the
European way, both by choice and 
necessity. She designs each and every bag in her 
four yearly collections. Almost every step
of production is done by hand in the 
factory loft on the floor directly below
Leiber's showrooms, although the tanning 
of the leathers themselves is done almost 
exclusively in Europe. ("There really is 
not tanning industry anymore in the United 
States," Leiber says with regret.) She 
bemoans in the dearth of dedicated crafts-
people in the profession, and quite apart
from the natural elation she feels over
recent events in Eastern Europe, not the
least of her joy revolves around the pos-
sibility of importing some of the old coun-
try's craftspeopls into the new. 

When asked how many hours a week 
she puts into her work, Leiber just shakes
her head, "I think about it all the time." 
Leiber runs not only the creative and pro-
duction end of things, but the business
end as well. "She is the business," says a 
longtime colleague. While keeping firm
control of production, distribution and 
marketing, Leiber must constantly be on 
the lookout for new ideas and trends to 
incorporate into her designs. And no
handbag, no matter how much its creator 
may like it, stays in the Leiber line if
it doesn't do well in the stores. "My 
favorite design," says Leiber with typical 
practicality, "is always the least successful
one."

Leiber loves "Leiber spotting," and 
though she refrains from accosting women
carrying her bags on the street, she will
almost always identify herself to someone
wearing one of her evening bags at a party.
"It's a wonderful way to open conver-
sation," she says. She feigns distress at 
the fact that it's not unusual to come 
across bags that she made some 15 or 20 
years ago: "Sometimes I tell the owners 
'You need a new one,' and they say, 'Why?
It's perfectly good.'" Leiber shakes her 
head in mock distress. "I made it too well, 
I guess."

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[[Image of model in dress]]
[Image caption: Made In Valentino]

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