Judith Leiber Evening Bag Designer.
Judith Leiber (born Judit Pető; January 11, 1921 – April 28, 2018) was a Hungarian-American fashion designer and businesswoman.
Leiber’s “Socks” and “Cupcake” models at the Museum of Bags and Purses in Amsterdam.
Fashion career
After working as a handbag designer for other companies, Leiber founded her own business in 1963. She is known for her crystal minaudières, evening purses made of a metal shell often encrusted with Swarovski crystals. Plated with silver or gold and with various forms, such as baby pigs, slices of watermelon, cupcakes, peacocks, penguins, and snakes.
Sold at exclusive boutiques around the world, her purses may cost up to several thousand dollars and have become a status symbol for many women, including several Presidential First Ladies to whom she has given them as a present, from Mamie Eisenhower to Barbara Bush and Hillary Clinton.
Animals are a recurring theme in her designs, and often ornament the most expensive purses of the collection, with prices on some animal-shaped minaudières exceeding US$7,000.
Some wealthy women collect them; Bernice Norman, an arts patron in New Orleans, owns close to 300 of the Leiber bags.
