The only Indian designer to have worked with celebrated handbag creator Judith Leiber's company, remembers her in the week of her passing
Judith Leiber
A woman of grit and grace is how New Delhi designer Suneet Varma remembers Judith Leiber. The 97-year-old handbag designer, known for beaded minaudières that found space not just in stores but museums for their artistic vision, died last Saturday at her home in Springs, New York, a hamlet in East Hampton. For Varma, the loss is deep. He is the Indian couturier to have worked with Leiber's luxury brand from 2009 to 2012, and then again in 2014, when he designed a bestseller, The Empress clutch.
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Diane Kruger at the Les Adieux De La Reine premiere at the 62nd Berlin International Film Festival in 2012
Varma says he has spent only forty minutes with Leiber, over lunch at the brand's headquarters that stand a few blocks away from Madison Avenue. This was in 2011. "I was visiting New York to make presentations for the new collection when I was told about a lunch meeting with Mrs Leiber. She was articulate, vocal about what she liked, and had a clear vision for her brand. She was dressed in a skirt and blouse, her glorious salt and pepper bob in place. I was surprised that she was a petite woman. But she was one who exercised authority," he recalls.
Carrying a wild cat Leiber clutch
That conversation stayed with him, and eventually became the inspiration for The Empress, a clutch he created using sapphires, tourmalines, rose quartz, pearls, rhine and black diamond crystals.
The fish
"It was my ode to Mrs Leiber." Born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1921, Leiber founded her handbag company in 1963, and built her empire from a small office in New York. The brand's famous patrons including Greta Garbo, Mamie Eisenhower and Queen Elizabeth II, prided itself in owning not handbags, but objets d'art, that often came in whimsical shapes, including snails, dolphins and crouching cheetahs. These would just about fit the palm and held nothing more than keys, a plastic card and lipstick.
Dragonfly clutch. Pics/Getty Images
"I find it surprising that although her designs were inspired by animals straight out of Jungle Book, and celebrated colour and embellishment, she never visited the country of colour, India," says Varma. The complicated animal shapes were created by first making wax models that were copied in metal in Italy. Most of the encrusting was done back in America.
The Empress clutch
Mrs Leiber's longest, and most successful collaboration was with her husband Gerson "Gus" Leiber, a well-known abstract painter, who was also instrumental in launching the company in 1963 after she had spent years working at an artisan guild, and later other manufacturers. They were married for 72 years. Leiber passed away hours after the death of her husband, and they were buried together last Monday. Varma says, "In my mind, Mrs Leiber was the Barbara Cartland of bags — romantic, feminine but strong and a visionary."
Suneet Varma
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