A Sparkling Legacy: The Judith Leiber Collection

Judith Leiber created exquisitely designed couture women’s accessories that blur the boundaries between fashion and fine art. Most known for her semiprecious adorned minaudières, or compact occasion cases, her creations also include day bags, belts, and pillboxes.

Judith Leiber (1921-2018) was born Judit Pető and raised in an upper-middle-class Jewish family in Budapest, Hungary. Inspired by her mother’s handbag collection, Leiber became the first female member of the Hungarian Handbag Makers Guild and the first female apprentice at Pessl, Budapest’s most prestigious handbag company. Leiber’s training was cut short by the Nazi occupation of Hungary, which placed her family under harsh restrictions. They initially survived under Swiss protection but were later forced into a Jewish ghetto, where they were eventually liberated by the Soviet Red Army.

In 1946, she married Gerson Leiber, an American soldier stationed in Budapest, and in 1947 emigrated with him to the United States to make a home in New York City. Leiber emerged as the only female handbag designer in the United States, eventually founding her own brand, Judith Leiber Handbags, in 1963. She eventually sold the company to Time Products in 1993 after revolutionizing the industry by elevating handbags to become works of art.

Leiber’s minaudières are marvels of craftsmanship. Every piece began with a wax model in her New York factory, then traveled to Florence, Italy, to be pressed into brass forms then plated in gold or silver, returning to New York for assembly and lining. Finally, teams of artisans hand-applied up to 13,000 Swarovski crystals, a process that could take weeks. Her iconic beading began by accident when an early bag returned with flawed plating. Leiber disguised the flaw with crystals, establishing what would become her signature innovative style. Over the course of her career Leiber created over 3,500 designs inspired by every facet of the world around her.

Considered one of the largest repositories of Judith Leiber bags in the United States, the Taubman Museum of Art’s Permanent Collection comprises nearly 120 pieces gifted by regional donors Rosalie K. and Sydney Shaftman, for whom the gallery is named. This gallery in the museum is dedicated to the permanent display of this collection and is frequently rotated to showcase the limitless range of Leiber’s artistic legacy.