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| D. Balazs brocade evening clutch bag with coin purse and matching compact. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
SPECIAL POST - D. Balazs, San Francisco, Maker of Exquisite Handbags - With Input From a Relative
When The Vintage Purse Museum’s curator stumbled upon a very worn, but extremely well-made petit point bag at a flea market, she was intrigued. It wasn’t until she got it back to our offices that she found a tiny WWII-era ration coupon tucked inside.
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| Beautiful, large petit point D. Balazs bag, trimmed in velvet, purchased at a flea market by our curator. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| Ration coupon found inside handbag shown above, along with closeup of the bag's needlework. |
It’s always delightful to discover something historical within a pocket or fold of a handbag, especially when it helps to date the bag. She also saw that it had a label, which revealed a maker whose name she’d never encountered.
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| Label of D. Balazs, handbag maker, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
The label said “D. Balazs Maker San Francisco.” As our curator had recently written an article about the history of Delill handbags, founded by a Hungarian couple, she recognized the surname as being of Hungarian origin. Upon further research, she discovered that the “D” was for Dezso, which was also the first name of the man who was the “De” in “Delill.” Although these two families were unrelated, the Jewish Hungarian community was known for its skilled leather workers, many of whom emigrated to the US before, during and after WWII to escape escalating violence against Jews in Eastern Europe. Perhaps the best known of these craftspeople is famed handbag maker Judith Leiber, who was a member of a handbag artisan’s guild in Hungary prior to moving to New York with her American husband after the war.
The Vintage Purse Museum was able to find the granddaughter of handbag makers Dezso (b. 1889) and Julia Kraus Balazs (b. 1894), who kindly shared with us some of her family’s story. Other info was culled through a genealogy website and a newspaper archive. Lisa Balazs, a landscape designer, is the daughter of the Balazses’s only son, Arthur (b. 1925). In 1940, the Balazs family lived in San Mateo, less than 20 miles from San Francisco, where Arthur was born. While he was in the real estate business during much of his adult life, he had also worked for his parents. We asked Lisa if the obi bags sold by handbag maker D. Balazs—for which we’d seen 1930s advertisements—were similar to those famously carried by Gump's, a renowned San Francisco department store. (Link to one of The Vintage Purse Museum's Gump's obi bags.) We were astounded when she told us that her grandparents provided those bags to Gump’s for resale, and that her father, in his youth, even made deliveries of them to the store. Obi bags were sold at Gump’s from the 1930s through the 1970s, so they would’ve had a different supplier after the Balazses retired in the mid-1950s. (The Vintage Purse Museum contacted Gump’s regarding their obi bags and they said they had no historical archives and could not be of assistance. We also reached out to the writers of the 1991 book “Gump’s Since 1861,” but did not receive a response.)
26 Feb 1930, Wed Santa Ana Register (Santa Ana, California) Newspapers.com
We found a 1920 directory listing for Dezso Balazs, proprietor of the “New Leather Goods Co.” at 3810 Sacramento St. (This may have been a residential address.) There were also 1936 and 1939 San Francisco directory listings with Julia and Dezso Belazs (Dezso’s misspelled “Dezro”) and their business at 251 Post St. This still exists as a commercial building, built in 1908 (according to Loopnet.com) near Union Square. Lisa Balazs told us that her grandparents had a storefront and a factory at this location, with approximately 40 workers at its peak. We found a 1944 classified ad showing the address as 245 Post St.; this was possibly the store’s address, while the factory and offices were at 251.
Julia and Dezso passed away when she was quite young, but Lisa remembers that her grandparents were very formal, with activities that included playing bridge and having cocktail hour. Her grandparents met in New York, where Julia had worked on Wall Street. (1940 US Census records show Julia’s birthplace as New York; Lisa told us her grandmother was born in Michigan.)
In 1927, Dezso patented a handbag clasp and, according to Lisa, later sold the patent. Their handbags, which were often crafted of imported fabrics and semi-precious jewels, were one-of-a-kind. Lisa told us that even if ten bags were made of the same material, they were all different in some way.
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| Dezso Balazs's clasp patent, screenshot from Google Patents. |
Lisa told The Vintage Purse Museum that she was very excited to have the opportunity to see one of her grandparents’ handbags at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), where the archivists gave her a private viewing.
The Vintage Purse Museum was so enamored of the quality and art that went into D. Balazs bags that we acquired a second piece.
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| Brocade D. Balazs clutch bag, possibly obi fabric, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
This one is made of brocade (possibly obi) fabric and has a near-new matching brocade and enamel compact by Hingeco Vanities of Providence, Rhode Island. Hingeco also made Truart jewelry. There are no manufacturer markings on the ornate clasp or frame of this bag. It also came with a satin coin purse that matches the bag’s lining. The coin purse’s kisslock is decorated with two black glass pointed stones—a subtle but unusual ornamentation for the period, indicative of quality craftsmanship.
These touches show how elegant the thought was behind D. Balazs handbags. They must've made their mark on a national level, because the article below (scroll down) indicates that the Balazses worked with famed East Coast fashion designer Clare Potter (1903-1999) on at least one of their handbag lines.
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| Coin purse inside the clutch above. Note the black glass beads set inside the kisslock clasp. |
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| Closeup of the clasp. |
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| Reverse of the clutch, showing its classic 1930s/1940s back strap. |
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| Matching brocade and enamel compact. |
It's truly incredible what an intriguing flea market find can lead to. These are the clues that keep us at The Vintage Purse Museum working diligently to provide you with the intricate stories behind these beautiful bags.
Special thanks to Lisa Balazs. Please email info@vintagepursemuseum.com for permission reprint this article, its photos or any other content from this website. Article c2021 by Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum.
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