Antique and Vintage Suitcases
Before Mondrian, Native American Women Painted Abstract Art on Saddlebags
By Lisa Hix — Europeans and European Americans didn’t fully embrace abstract art until the early 20th century, when artists like Piet Mondrian and Ilya Bolotowsky used color, lines, and geometric forms as their means of expression. However, shapes in bold hues have long been a part of the visual language for Native Americans, centuries before their invaders got obsessed with color blocks. Similarly, before Louis Vuitton steamer trunks became all the rage, Plains and Plateau tribes—who became increasingly...
Abandoned Suitcases Reveal Private Lives of Insane Asylum Patients
By Hunter Oatman-Stanford — If you were committed to a psychiatric institution, unsure if you'd ever return to the life you knew before, what would you take with you? That sobering question hovers like an apparition over each of the Willard Asylum suitcases. From the 1910s through the 1960s, many patients at the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane left suitcases behind when they passed away, with nobody to claim them. Upon the center's closure in 1995, employees found hundreds of these time capsules stored in a...
Lucite in the Sky with Diamonds
By Ben Marks — Of all the fashion accessories of the 1950s—Ray-Ban sunglasses, Pucci scarves, Eisenberg cocktail rings—none were more dazzling than Lucite handbags. These geometric gems, which in retrospect seem to anticipate the exuberance of the 1960s, were like portable jewel boxes turned inside out, in hues that ranged from basic black to pretty pastels to clear. Some purses were made of laminated Lucite, sealing butterflies, raffia, and multi-colored confetti within their rigid plastic sides....
Purse Perfection: Judith Leiber on Faberge, Rhinestones, and Her Favorite First Ladies
By Maribeth Keane and Bonnie Monte — When I was a girl, my mother had a lot of wonderful handbags. My dad traveled often in Western Europe. Every time he came home he brought her a beautiful bag. Some of the bags came from Vienna, where my mother was born and raised. She also had bags from France, England, and Spain. My father used to buy them from all over the place. Before the war, there were laws in Hungary that prevented Jews from going to university. If you were Jewish and wanted to attend a university, you had to go...
Abigail Rutherford on the History of Vintage Handbags
By Maribeth Keane and Brad Quinn — Even as a young girl, I was interested in the historical aspect of handbags. I probably started collecting in high school when I became more aware of my own tastes. I went to a small art school for college and did a lot of studio work, even though I was an art history major. Eventually, I went to one of Leslie Hindman’s auctions and talked to her about the historical side of things versus the mass market of today’s fashion world. She took a chance and hired me as the director of vintage...