SPECIAL POST: Salesman extraordinaire Herb Teres and his contribution to handbag history
With additional info about Leo Stoffmacher and Supreme handbags from Arnold Simon
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| Handbag salesman Herb Teres. Photo courtesy Marilyn Teres. |
This post is a bit different from previous articles we’ve written about handbag manufacturers. Today we’re paying homage to one of the salesmen out of many more we hope to continue to acknowledge, along with fascinating additional information for our fellow handbag history buffs.
Some backstory: The Vintage Purse Museum researched and wrote an article about Tyrolean handbags. During the course of our investigation, we learned that a salesman named Herb Teres represented the line, which is very unique and beautiful, as well as highly collectible today, seven decades after its creation.
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| Herb Teres represented Tyrolean handbags at his Fifth Avenue office. Advertisement from the March 1958 issue of Handbags & Accessories, a trade publication. Magazine from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Herb also represented Faye Mell handbags’ Fleurette line, a company based in Florida and operated by Faye Mell Rosen. Like Tyrolean, Faye Mell bags are prized among collectors.
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| Herb Teres represented Fleurette bags at his Fifth Avenue office. Advertisement from the March 1958 issue of Handbags & Accessories, a trade publication. Magazine from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
We'd written an in-depth story about Tyrolean handbags and we knew a bit about the Faye Mell company, but when we discovered the name Herb Teres, we wanted to know more about his connection to the handbag industry. His daughter Marilyn Teres kindly shared some of her father’s story, which took place in the veritable handbag epicenter of New York City. As we’ve discovered while researching previous articles, the mid-century handbag industry was immense, but it seems nearly everyone had a connection to everyone else.
So, unsurprisingly, we learned that many members of Herb’s family were involved in the garment business, starting with Herb’s mother, Lillian (1890-1968), who had a millinery shop. She raised Herb and his three brothers, Alex, Jesse and Donald, after the untimely death of her husband Daniel.
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| Herb and his three brothers. Photo courtesy Marilyn Teres. |
The Vintage Purse Museum found a 1939 article that said Jesse Teres (1913-2002) was manager at Schwartz leather goods and gift shop at Albee Square. Alex (1911-1961) and his wife Jeanne (1910-1997) were owners of a handbag store, established in 1951 in Great Neck, New York. Youngest brother Donald (1928-1995) was a salesman.
William Teres (1893-1964)—Marilyn’s great-uncle Willie—had a textile factory around the corner from Herb’s office. The 1940 US Census shows that William Teres was a manufacturer in the silk goods industry. Herb’s favorite cousin was Willie’s daughter Malvina (1919-2019). The Vintage Purse Museum has in its collection a William Teres fabric-designed handbag with its original hang tags. This fabric resembles that which is commonly referred to as “nova tweed” in 1960s-1970s newspaper ads, but rather than being a type of hopsack, it’s raffia-based.
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| American Modes handbag made of fabric by William Teres, Herb Teres's uncle. Bag includes original price tag, hangtag, mirror and coin purse. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum |
Herbert “Herb” Teres (1916-1986) was born in Jersey City, New Jersey. He served in the US Army in Tripoli, North Africa during World War II. His 1943 enlistment record says he had “semiskilled occupations in manufacture of clocks, watches, jewelry and articles of precious metals.” We could find no further evidence of him being in the jewelry business. In 1941 he married Rosaline “Ronnie” Heller (1920-2004) and they had two children, David and Marilyn.
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| Ronnie and Herb Teres. Photo courtesy Marilyn Teres. |
Marilyn Teres told us that Herb was “delicious, handsome, charming and a great father,” and that he traveled a lot for business. She always waited up for him when she knew he was on his way home, saying she was “spoiled rotten” with gifts and affection. The Vintage Purse Museum’s curator spoke with her over the phone, and was touched by the tremendously warm and loving bond between father and daughter.
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| Marilyn Teres and her father Herb. Photo courtesy Marilyn Teres. |
For fun, Herb and Ronnie—who was a favorite confidant of Marilyn’s friends—would go dancing at the Roseland Ballroom, take Florida vacations and visit the racetrack.
Marilyn remembered her father’s showroom on 347 5th Ave. and that buyers from various stores would go there to see samples and order handbags. She said her father had a certain way of holding a handbag that made each bag extraordinary and beautiful even if it wasn’t. She told us “nobody could do it like him.”
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| Current photo of 347 5th Ave., New York, NY, screenshot from Loopnet.com. It is across the street from the Empire State Building. |
Marilyn’s brother David recalled that their father had a connection to the Make-Well Leather Goods Company. Make-Well was founded in New York in 1923 and moved to Pennsylvania in 1934. It is unclear how long it stayed in business, but we found Make-Well newspaper references dated as late as 1977. Although the Make-Well factory was located in Pennsylvania for most of its existence, The Vintage Purse Museum found a 1937 classified ad seeking a Missouri territory salesman for Make-Well, with the contact address of 171 Madison Ave., New York City. This location had showrooms for many handbag makers for decades, including names such as Brill & Brill, Llewellyn and Phil Samstag. Prior to that, in 1930, per the website of The Bag Lady, Make-Well’s showroom address was 18 E. 16th St., New York City. It is unclear when Herb Teres worked for Make-Well, but the distance between Herb’s 5th Ave. showroom* and the one on 171 Madison Ave. is a mere three minutes.
*Note: We don’t have documentation regarding where Herb Teres worked prior to the 1950s. We should also mention that handbag companies in those days often did not add a suite number to their New York City showroom addresses even though these large buildings housed a number of businesses.
In addition to Tyrolean and Fleurette, The Vintage Purse Museum found evidence that Herb had a connection to the Supreme line of handbags. The evidence, strangely enough, was that his name was stamped inside a Supreme handbag, which was sold on Etsy by Jennifer Rowland of EaDo Vintage, who gave us permission to use her photos.
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Photo of 1950s-1960s Supreme handbag, used with permission of Jennifer Rowland, who sold it from her Etsy shop, EaDo Vintage.
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But why on Earth would a salesman’s name be inside a handbag? Did he design it? Was he a partner in the company? What was the connection? This is where the story deepens.
According to the website of The Bag Lady, there was a company called Supreme Leather Goods that went out of business in 1934. It was located at 347 5th Ave., which, as we said above, eventually became Herb Teres’s showroom address. At the time that it went out of business, it was operated by Morris Carlin, a relative of prolific handbag maker Julius Resnick, about whom we also wrote an article.
The Vintage Purse Museum discovered that Supreme Leather Goods reestablished itself in 1943 as a corporation operating in New York. The only name we could find attached to the corporate filing was that of an attorney, so we couldn’t discern who ran the business. This was, it seems, a new version of the company.
We asked Marilyn Teres if she knew about her father’s name being inside the bag. She didn’t, but she asked her brother David, who came up with the name Leo Stoffmacher in relation to Supreme. Intrigued, we set about doing some research. (Because of course we did!)
Leonard “Leo” Stoffmacher (1900-1994) was, according to the 1940 US Census, in the “pocketbooks” industry. Per online documents, Leo was born in Russia, came to the US in 1938 and became a naturalized US citizen in 1944. We contacted one of Leo’s grandchildren, who then put us in touch with other grandchildren. One of Leo Stoffmacher's grandchildren told us: "One 'quote' I always remember my Grandpa Leo saying was 'everyday is labor day.' As an immigrant, he understood long hours and dedication were not a choice but a necessity to survive and/or thrive." Another of the grandchildren is the child of a gentleman named Arnold Simon, who is the widower of Leo’s daughter Elaine. Arnold, who worked for Leo, graciously took some time to speak with The Vintage Purse Museum’s curator.
Arnold told us that Leo was born in Russia, but lived in Germany, which is where his father had a handbag company called Stoffmacher & Sons starting in the early 1900s, with 200 employees at its peak. Leo was able to flee Germany just prior to the start of WWII, said Arnold, because he was Russian and, therefore, considered a foreigner. This fact essentially saved his family's lives. When Leo arrived in the US, he began working at the Meyers handbag factory. The Vintage Purse Museum believes Leo Stoffmacher was one of the partners behind the restart of Supreme Leather Goods Corp. just five years after his arrival to the US.
Among Supreme's first products in the 1940s were leather photo wallets that were marketed to military service members who wanted to carry pictures of their loved ones. The company also made luggage.
We found a 1957 newspaper obituary for Max Salem (b. Max Isbutsky, Russia, 1891-d. Long Island, NY, 1957), who (according to the obituary) owned the Supreme Bag Company for about 20 years, retiring eight years prior to his death. Arnold told us that he remembered that Leo initially had a partner, but could not recall his name. The time frame mentioned in Max Salem's obituary is in line with the earlier Supreme Leather Goods, which started in 1919, went bankrupt in 1932 and folded in 1934. We also found a 1922 New Jersey address directory that listed Max Salem as president of Supreme Leather Goods in New York, so perhaps he was the more silent partner of the face of the company, Morris Carlin (1883-1953), brother-in-law of Julius Resnick. It's entirely possible that Max Salem was also part of its second incarnation in 1943, bringing in Leo Stoffmacher as partner, which would explain why the company name was recycled. Coincidentally, Morris Carlin also started a new handbag company, Carlin & Fried, that same year, 1943. If we find further information to verify the above, we'll post an update.
Leo's son-in-law Arnold Simon was a science teacher, and was brought into Supreme Leather Goods Corp. initially just on weekends to help with paperwork and tracking inventory. After Leo retired in the late 1960s, Arnold took over the company with a partner named Simon Londner. They continued the Supreme legacy of making leather bags and eventually added snakeskin lines.
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1980s Supreme leather handbag from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.
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It was difficult to find information about Simon Londner, but we believe he was born Szymon Londner in 1914 in Poland and became a naturalized US citizen in 1956 in Brooklyn, New York. Arnold Simon told us that Simon Londner was a Holocaust survivor. He was held at Auschwitz concentration camp, and the only reason he lived to tell his story was because he was an expert pattern-maker and could create handbags, clothing, volleyballs and other items for the Nazis and their families.
Many Jews emigrated to the US in the decades before WWII due to escalating anti-Semitism and they, as well as those who survived it and came after the war, settled into various segments of the apparel business. Among the most famous handbag industry Holocaust survivors is Hungarian-born Judith Leiber (1921-2018), best known for her celebrity-worn minaudieres. The Vintage Purse Museum has researched a number of makers and we’ve found that many who left Europe from the turn of the 20th century onward kept a low profile, so documentation about their origins is often hard to uncover—including accurate birthdates, home countries, education, employment, etc. This is an entirely understandable issue of fear, caution and self-preservation. One of The Vintage Purse Museum’s goals is to make sure our many social media followers get to know the people behind the creation of these beautiful bags, but also be aware of the traumatic backgrounds of numerous Jewish handbag industry professionals.
According to an online search, Supreme dissolved its corporation in 1992. Arnold Simon retired briefly, then went back into the handbag business with Howard Greenwald, formerly of Ronay handbags. Together they owned Elan handbags, with Arnold a 75 percent partner and production manager, and Howard, the sales manager, with a 25 percent stake. Elan eventually acquired the famous Jessica McClintock label. Arnold Simon, who retired nine years ago at age 71, told us that Jessica McClintock (1930-2021) was a very nice woman. The Jessica McClintock license was eventually sold to Mundi Leather Goods, a Richard Florin company, and is now owned by Y&S, which also owns the Magid name, another handbag company about whom The Vintage Purse Museum has written.
This is but one example of how intertwined and complex the handbag industry was and still is. There are many facets of a successful bag business, and one of the most integral parts is the dedication of the salespersons. In the 1940s-1960s, these were the men who maintained a rapport with the department store buyers who’d visit New York showrooms on Madison Avenue or 33rd Street and watch them demonstrate their wares with aplomb.
We asked Arnold Simon what he knew about Herb Teres and he told us that he was popular and well-known as a salesman and that he was sales manager at Supreme. Arnold also knew some of Herb’s relatives in the handbag business. We are unsure of the exact dates that Herb Teres worked for Supreme, but it was before Arnold Simon and Simon Londner took over the company. Therefore, the Supreme handbag with the Herb Teres imprint was likely made while Supreme was still helmed by Leo Stoffmacher in the 1950s.
Marilyn told us that her brother David said that their father’s name was inside the bag because he likely had input about its design. This imprinted homage, the siblings said, was because of “his tremendous personality, salesmanship and…that he made a beautiful bag.”
The Vintage Purse Museum is grateful to Marilyn Teres, David Teres, Arnold Simon and the grandchildren of Leo Stoffmacher. We also credit the following resources: The Bag Lady, Jennifer Rowland of EaDo Vintage, newspaper archive Newspapers.com, genealogy website MyHeritage.com and various Google searches. This article c2022 by The Vintage Purse Museum/Wendy Dager. Please do not use photos or information from this website without requesting permission, info@vintagepursemuseum.com. Special note: We found a Canadian company called Supreme Leather Goods, and another in Chicago, as well as a Supreme Leather Goods shop in the late 1920s-early 1930s in Brooklyn. As far as we know, these are unrelated to Mr. Stoffmacher's company.
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