WASHINGTON - As a little girl in Hungary, Judith Leiber had her heart set on studying chemistry in London.
An aunt had married into a Romanian family that had made fortune in moisturizing facial creams, and Leiber envisioned herself following in their footsteps. That is, until World War II broke out and quashed Leiber's plans.
Instead, she stumbled upon work connected to a longtime love of her mother's - purses.
From Leiber's humble beginnings as a handbag-maker's apprentice grew a passion for the craft. In the decades that followed, she began designing under her own name and built an empire out of her vision for whimsical yet beautiful purses that have been in the clutches of red carpet winners on Oscar night and first ladies at inaugural balls.
After designing more than 3,000 bags so coveted as objets d'art that women have been known to build cabinets to display them, Leiber is being celebrated as a treasure in the art of purse making. Recently, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington decided to honor Leiber with an exhibit of her handbags titled Fashioning Art: Handbags by Judith Leiber.
"Survival was the only reason for going into the handbag business," said Leiber, now 81, reflecting on her career during a Washington visit to celebrate her exhibit's opening two weeks ago. "I said, 'I have to learn a trade because after the war, I am getting out of here.' My mother had wonderful handbags because she loved bags. And here I am, making handbags."
Big enough for a $100 bill
To call them handbags would be like saying Monets are mere paintings, which is part of the reason the Corcoran is casting the spotlight on her. In recent years, museum talking heads have spent much time pondering whether fashion is art. In Leiber's case, curators argue that her pieces have always been just as worthy of a spot in a display case as in a lady's hand.
Leiber's pieces are far from the standard fare available in department stores. They are sparkling, rhinestone-studded creations, most of which are small enough to fit in a lady's delicate hand. ("Big enough for a handkerchief, a lipstick and a $100 bill," Leiber said. "That's what you need in case you want to get rid of your boyfriend and have to pay your own fare.")
Each bag is handcrafted, even the jeweled ones, some of which are encrusted with as many as 13,000 crystals. And because each crystal is carefully applied with an adhesive-coated stick, it can take five days to make a purse.
"The level of craftsmanship is unparalleled," said Stacey Schmidt, assistant curator for contemporary art at the Corcoran. "They go above and beyond your average bag because of the amount of time, the materials involved. She falls in the tradition of Tiffany, Lalique and Cartier: very few designers who have been given museum retrospectives. Her bags have stood the test of time and they hold up over time. She is interested in creating as opposed to selling."
The more than 160 on display at the Corcoran through Dec. 30 include a bejeweled menagerie of a pig, panda bear, penguin and polar bear. There is the quirky series inspired by the garden - a bright red tomato, a bunch of asparagus - and gilded pieces in the shape of a meditating Buddha or a Tutankhamen-style monkey.
The exhibit also includes the beautiful, white "Peace Dove" bag that Leiber gave Barbara Bush at the end of the Gulf War and the inaugural ball purses of Bush and Nancy Reagan. Leiber's repertoire also includes day-bags - envelope purses in a variety of hues made of python or alligator skin.
"Judith Leiber has definitely won a place in the history of the handbag," said Valerie Steele, chief curator and acting director of the Museum of the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. "She has been instrumental in reviving the idea of the little artistic evening bag. In fact, she virtually created the amusing style of evening purses shaped like tomatoes and pandas and so on. Many of her clients really like to think of them as little works of art."
And these works of art don't come cheap. Leiber's bags for everyday use cost between $1,500 to $4,000 while the evening purses are at least $3,000. Even with the hefty price tags, they've been so desired by the moneyed from Paris to New York that she's sold hundreds of thousands of bags since she founded her company in New York in 1963.
"She's probably the most world-renowned, American-made bag that we carry," said Martha Slagle, vice president and general manager of Neiman Marcus in Washington. "When women carry them when they go to an event, it really makes them stand out. It says you've arrived."
A 'lucky accident'
Leiber herself is a little surprised by her success. Born Judith Peto, she was raised in Budapest and never dreamed she would one day become a premier handbag artisan, much less gain worldwide recognition for her work. After learning the basics in Hungary - sewing, framing bags and cutting fabric - she happened to meet an American GI on the street one day and fall in love. His name was Gus Leiber, and in 1946 they married and moved to New York, where he could pursue painting and she found work making handbags.
But Leiber grew dissatisfied with working for other designers and her husband began pushing her in a new direction.
"I just wanted her to stop working for other people and to be able to express her own ideas, and she was full of them," Gus Leiber said. "So I thought at the time, 'We're going into business.'"
At first, Judith Leiber Inc. consisted of the Leiber couple and four employees. They had a fabric cutter, a phone operator, a pocketbook maker and a helper. Leiber designed bags and made them, while her husband raced around Manhattan, delivering them to stores.
Women began snapping up the purses almost immediately, and Leiber soon was on the way to international fame.
Among Leiber's creations, her biggest hit has been the Chatelaine, a gilded, shell-shaped evening bag studded with rhinestones. And the idea to stick rhinestones on the purse happened by accident in the late 1960s.
"The stock came in full of green spots because the plating wasn't done well in Italy at the time," Leiber recalled. "I had to cover the spots, so I put rhinestones on. It was an accident, but a lucky accident."
She also never missed a chance to scope out the competition.
"Once, we were waiting for the train in Florence to go to Milan and a woman was carrying a handbag that I thought was very interesting," Leiber said. "I kept looking at it and she thought that her stocking was falling down because I was looking at her. She started to drag her stocking up."
Carries her own
In 1973, she was the first handbag designer to win a Coty fashion award, and in 1994, the Council of Fashion Designers honored her with a "Lifetime Achievement Award." By the time she sold her company in 1993, Leiber was selling about 25,000 bags a year. Celebrities such as Joan Collins, Hillary Clinton, Jennifer Lopez and Tyra Banks have carried her bags.
In 1993, Leiber and her husband decided to sell their company to Time Products, a British company that distributes high-end watches. She remained chief designer for five years before retiring in 1998.
She still does, however, have strong opinions about some of the recent trends. She likes the structure of the Christian Dior saddlebags but wrinkles her nose at the Fendi baguettes popularized by Sex and the City. "I don't like it at all," she said. "It's very soft so the center of it sags. I like more structure."
She always carries her own purses - she owns 300 of them - and wishes that Britain's queen would use the purse she gave her decades ago. "I've never seen her wear it," she said. "I think she likes those clunky bags with handles."
Leiber hasn't enjoyed her retirement too much and complained about "hanging around the house, doing nothing." So, this month, she launched a new line of silver tabletop accessories under her childhood nickname and maiden name, Ditty Peto, that's being sold at Neiman Marcus.
Whether or not the line does as well as her handbags, Leiber said she appreciates the blessed life she's had so far.
"We were fortunate first of all to survive the war," she said. "Then to meet my husband, who is a great guy, and to come to this country and start working in this trade and do all this. I was just extremely lucky."
On exhibit
What: Fashioning Art: Handbags by Judith Leiber
Where: The Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 17th Street N.W., Washington.
When: Now through Dec. 30. The gallery is open every day except Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. On Thursdays, it is open until 9 p.m.
Admission: $5 for adults, $3 for seniors, $1 for students and $8 for family groups of any size. Free for members and children 12 and under. Free admission Thursdays after 5 p.m. and all day on Mondays.
Call: 202-639-1700