SPECIAL POST: The History of Lucille de Paris Handbags

Special Post: Lucille de Paris Handbags - With input from the granddaughter of the company's founders

1960s Lucille de Paris for I. Magnin ostrich bag. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Lucille de Paris - I. Magnin & Co. imprint in bag above. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

. 27 Apr 1959, Mon Star Tribune (Minneapolis, Minnesota) Newspapers.com

The Vintage Purse Museum wasn’t planning to write the history of Lucille de Paris handbags as we felt there was sufficient documentation online, but when we looked into obtaining background for the Lucille bags in our collection, we felt that the whole story had not been told. We were beyond delighted to connect with Barbara Basile, the eldest of six grandchildren of Lucille de Paris founders Lucille and Charles Hahn. Barbara graciously shared details about the company and her wonderful grandparents.

The elegant Lucille Hahn, eponym of Lucille de Paris handbags. Photo courtesy Barbara Basile.

Lucille de Paris was a high-end, New York-based handbag line carried nationwide in better department stores in the 1950s-1960s. According to various websites, Lucille and Charles began their business in the 1930s in Paris, making custom beaded bags. When we broached this with Barbara, she said that she was not aware of any evidence or documentation regarding their making this type of handbag. Instead, family lore was that they had a leather goods factory in France, possibly purchased by Lucille’s father in 1924, and primarily operated by Charles after he and Lucille married. At that time, the business was not called Lucille de Paris. Barbara shared that it was called “Maison Lucille,” although it is unclear what the bags were labeled. While we did find early references to several Maison Lucille businesses in US newspaper archives, these were not handbag companies. It’s entirely possible the US stores of the era that were importing Maison Lucille bags from France did not advertise the maker in newspapers, or that the bags were sold unlabeled or with retail store labels. If we find further documentation we will update this post.

January 27, 1924 wedding photo of Lucille and Charles Hahn, courtesy of Barbara Basile, their granddaughter.

Lucille Anna Gutmann (also spelled Guttman) was born in 1905 in Poland to Alexander and Dora Plesner Gutmann. Karl “Charles” Hahn was born in 1900 in Austria to Adolf and Elsa Abeles Hahn. Lucille and Charles married in 1924 and had two children, Pierre Charles (who used the name Peter) and Leon Claude (who went by his middle name). Barbara Basile is the first of Peter Hahn’s four children with his wife, Josephine Suarez Hahn.

Another confusing aspect is that numerous websites indicate Lucille de Paris started making bags in the 1930s, then moved to the US in the 1940s. We found a ship’s manifest that recorded Lucille’s arrival to the US in 1927 under the name Lucyanna Hahn, to visit her brother Henry H. Guttman (1898-1979; a very interesting and colorful man, per our research in newspaper archives). In the same genealogy archive, there were other ships’ manifests showing Lucille and Charles Hahn’s journeys to and from the US and Europe over subsequent years. 

We thought this meant that they were already living in the US and visiting Europe for their manufacturing facilities, but Barbara clarified the timeline for us. While the Hahns were still living and working in Paris, they traveled to the US for business and to visit relatives. When WWII was underway and circumstances began getting increasingly dangerous for Jews, the Hahns fled to Nice, on the coast of France, which was not occupied by the Nazis. They then attempted to move to the US, but this proved difficult for a large number of Jews, as has been documented by historians. Instead, in 1942, they left France, stopped briefly in Portugal, moved to Havana, Cuba, then to Canada, where they lived until emigrating to the US in 1945.

The Vintage Purse Museum once again stresses the importance of telling our audience that many of our handbag histories involve those that survived the Holocaust and the anti-Semitism in the decades leading up to it. Sometimes, we uncover stories of relatives of handbag makers that did not survive, and we honor their memory. We also understand why those who came to the US for a better life often did not speak about what happened to them in their home countries.

Lucille and Charles Hahn, circa 1950. Photo courtesy Barbara Basile.

According to the 1950 Census, the Hahns were living in Queens, New York with their son Claude and Lucille’s mother Dora Gutmann (misspelled “Laura Gutman” in the record). It states that Charles was in the handbag business.

Although the couple had been in the bag manufacturing industry for decades in Europe, the majority of US newspaper and Vogue magazine advertisements for Lucille de Paris were from 1952 until the late 1960s. Among these ads was a connection to Saphir Sales, a well-known leather conditioning company that is still in business today. We reached out to Saphir to see if they had any historical archives to help us learn more about their Lucille de Paris affiliation. (We will update this post if we hear from Saphir.) Barbara told us that some Lucille handbags came with a small container of Saphir leather conditioning cream. Her grandparents were friendly with the Saphir family in France and Barbara stayed with them for a summer as a young teen. 

Saphir factory with company president Mr. Saphir on the left and Peter Hahn on the right. Photo courtesy Barbara Basile.

Screenshot of Vogue magazine ad for Lucille de Paris bags and Saphir leather renovating cream, September 15, 1963, clipped via Proquest.

There was a Gutmann leather factory in Chicago that was established in 1878 and closed in 2006, but there appears to be no relation to Lucille or her family.  

Barbara has fond memories of her grandparents. Lucille was very glamorous and fashion-conscious, and always perfectly dressed, made-up and coiffed. That didn’t stop her from happily allowing baby Barbara, her first grandchild, to mess up her hair! Lucille also visited Barbara’s parents’ apartment every morning before work, often bringing dresses for little Barbara, filling her closet so fast that she’d sometimes outgrow them before she could wear them. Lucille often took Barbara to the Catskills on vacation. She had a 1960 robin’s-egg blue Thunderbird with all the bells and whistles, which eventually went to Barbara. Her very polished and chic grandmother, said Barbara, was the Lucille de Paris contact for wholesale buyers at high-end stores such as Saks, Neiman Marcus and Lord and Taylor.

Lucille de Paris advertisement, Vogue magazine, October 1, 1958 (screenshot via Proquest).

Charles Hahn was a stereotypically stern Austrian, very tall and possessing a deep voice. He would bring his granddaughter chocolates every Sunday, and the family was surprised that this quite formal man would occasionally get on the floor and allow little Barbara to ride on his back. Charles and Lucille adored Barbara and she them.

The Lucille de Paris handbag company was on the 10th floor at its 33rd street location, with a showroom in the front that had shelves and big glass tables, and a factory in the back. Sometimes during the summer, Barbara would go to work with her father Peter, who, with his brother Claude, were employed in the family business. Some of the other employees were from Cuba, where the Hahns had lived prior to emigrating. These individuals remained friendly with the Hahn family for many years.

Peter Hahn pictured with a variety of Lucille de Paris handbags in the company's showroom. Photo courtesy Barbara Basile.

The Lucille de Paris factory at 30 e. 33rd St. Photo courtesy Barbara Basile.

Although it produced handbags in a variety of leathers, Lucille de Paris was mostly known for its fine alligator skin bags. Barbara told us they purchased the skins from a company called Gordon-Choisy, owned by Leon Gordon and Pierre Grawitz (1933-2008). Dyeing alligator is very difficult, but the Gordon-Choisy skins were of particular importance to the Lucille de Paris brand, said Barbara, because their tannery was able to dye them in a variety of colors, including pastels. Online resources indicate Gordon-Choisy was established in 1966, a merger of the two partners, who were already veterans of the tannery business. Gordon-Choisy was acquired by Louis Vuitton in 1990; however, its current parent company is Heng Long & Hermes Cuirs Preciux (HCP). 

Gordon Choisy building. Peter Hahn is second from right at the back of the photo; Mr. Gordon is third from right in the foreground. Photo courtesy Barbara Basile. 

We asked Barbara if Lucille de Paris carried any other lines and she told us about Deauville bags, made in a slightly different fashion to Lucille handbags, but at a more affordable price point. (Other high-end handbag makers of the era, including Walborg and Josef, did this as well.) The two lines were made in the same factory, and their logo—the Lucille de Paris whimsical alligator—is present in the leather lining of both.

16 Nov 1959, Mon Birmingham Post-Herald (Birmingham, Alabama) Newspapers.com

The same quality of alligator was used, but the way the two lines were made differed. Lucille de Paris bags were cut so that the seam in the middle is the belly of the alligator, and the seams on each side evenly placed, while Deauville handbags took the most advantage of the full skin. 

Deauville alligator handbag made by Lucille de Paris, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Maker imprint inside above bag. Deauville bags used the same alligator logo as Lucille de Paris. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

It should be noted that there was another company called Deauville in the 1930s-1940s, but it went out of business prior to Lucille de Paris using the name.

Charles passed away in 1957. Lucille was working at the company as late as 1962, just two years before she died at age 59. Her sons Peter and Claude were operating Lucille de Paris at the time of their mother’s death in 1964. 

While new styles were introduced, the classic 1950s designs of Lucille and Charles Hahn lived on after their sons took over the company. Peter (b. 1926) was in charge of sales and Claude (b. 1928) was responsible for factory operations. 

Taupe leather bag by Lucille de Paris. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

Lucille de Paris imprint in bag above. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.

In the late 1960s, alligators were set to be designated an endangered species, so in 1969, the brothers closed the doors of Lucille de Paris. Peter briefly worked for Walborg, then moved to Puerto Rico with his wife and their younger children, and went into real estate. He passed away in Puerto Rico in 1977. Claude moved from the United States back to his native France where he planned to relaunch the Lucille de Paris brand, but died in 1973 before his dream could be realized.

The desirability of Lucille de Paris handbags continues through collectors who appreciate a beautiful, well-made product. With this broader knowledge of the company and its founders, The Vintage Purse Museum believes these collectors will also share our appreciation for the lovely, poised, gracious woman for whom these bags were named.

Special thanks to Barbara Basile for kindly sharing her family’s story. Other resources used were Newspapers.com, MyHeritage.com and Google searches. Please do not use any information or photos from this article or website without requesting permission, info@vintagepursemuseum.com.

29 Sep 1966, Thu The Atlanta Constitution (Atlanta, Georgia) Newspapers.com

06 Oct 1967, Fri San Antonio Express (San Antonio, Texas) Newspapers.com