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| One of Ilene handbags' most popular designs, a clutch with rhinestone-encrusted bumblebees. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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| Closeup of etched bee with rhinestones on bag above. |
Queen City Plastics and The Story of Ilene Handbags
The Vintage Purse Museum and our many vintage collector friends sure love a fabulous plastic handbag! One brand of plastic purses that has intrigued us over the years is the mysterious Ilene. It’s not as well known as some of the names you often hear associated with acrylic and acetate bag makers of the 1950s-1960s, so we took yet another deep dive into the newspaper and genealogy archives.
Once we figured out that Ilene bags were produced by a company called Queen City Plastics, located in New Rochelle, New York, we set about finding relatives of Joseph Lubars, the company’s founder. We contacted one of his grandchildren, who graciously forwarded our request to their parents (names withheld for privacy). They kindly helped us fill in some of the blanks.
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| Molded faux tortoise-shell plastic handbag with gold-tone handle by Ilene. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
Joseph Lubars was born Joseph Lubarsky in 1909 in New Jersey to Ukrainian immigrants Israel Lubarsky and Hanna (or Anna) Goldberg Lubarsky, who had eight other children. In the 1930 US Census, “Joe Lubarsky” was 21 years old and living in Brooklyn with his parents and six of his siblings, and working as a jewelry salesman.
Joseph married Gertrude Citrin (1912-1953) in 1938 in Brooklyn. They had one child, a daughter. In 1954, Joseph married Sylvia Tresser (1915-1961), with whom he had two sons. In 1962, Joseph married Sylvia Brightman Mazer (1916-1985) whose father was Max Brightman (1896-1962), owner of Brightman Products Co., Inc., manufacturer and importer of clothing and accessories. One of the company's brands was Britemode handbags. Britemode is best known for its “carryall” style of evening bag, which often includes a plastic comb. It seems likely that the couple met because Joseph’s company, which made plastic combs, was a product supplier for Britemode handbags. (Sylvia’s brother Bernie Brightman, 1920-2003, was founder of jazz record label Stash Records.)
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| Britemode brocade carryall bag with matching compact, and gold-edged and clear plastic comb, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. The comb may have been made by Joseph Lubars's company Queen City Plastics. Joseph's third wife was Britemode's founder's daughter Sylvia. |
According to the 1940 US Census, Joseph worked as a production manager at a plastics company in Massachusetts. We believe this company was Commonwealth Plastics, Inc. (More about this below.) He and his first wife Gertrude moved from Massachusetts to New York shortly after 1940.
After the Lubarses moved to New York, Joseph owned a business there called Plastones Co., which made buttons for clothing. We could find only one 1944 reference to “Joseph Lubars doing business as Plastones Co.,” so we don’t know how long he had this business or what other products he may have manufactured. However, we are fairly certain that he no longer owned Plastones Co. after he established Queen City Plastics in 1946. (Note: There were different products made by other companies that also used the business or trade name “Plastone.”)
According to the Lubars family, with whom we spoke via email, “Joseph’s brother-in-law was William Lester, Uncle Bill, who was married to Joe’s youngest sister Betty. He owned a business molding plastic stuff like buttons for the radio and combs. He owned many plastic molding patents that made him a very rich man. He was an engineer.”
Well, of course The Vintage Purse Museum had to look up Uncle Bill! Mechanical engineer William Lester (1908-2005) revolutionized the plastic molding business with his 1935 invention, which became known as the “Lester Machine.” A plastics pioneer, he was a partner at Commonwealth Plastics, Inc., founded in 1933 in Leominster, Massachusetts, which was where Joseph and Gertrude Lubars were living after they married. One could infer from this that it was William, husband of Joseph’s sister Betty (1912-1993), who helped Joseph embark on a career in the plastics industry.
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Trio of unlabeled plastic clutches with inset rhinestone squares, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. We have seen others like these with the Ilene label, so we believe these are likely attributable to Ilene/Queen City Plastics.
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The 1950 US Census says that Joseph, Gertrude, and their 9-year-old daughter were living in Brooklyn, New York, and that he was a “salesman” at a “wholesale plastics manufacturer.” We believe this to be Queen City Plastics, which, in a 1946 classified ad, was referred to as Queen City Plastic Industries, Inc. (Note: There is an unrelated Queen City Plastics currently doing business in South Carolina.)
According to a 1954 (White Plains, NY) Reporter-Dispatch article about the plastics industry: “Plastic items and novelties ranging from coin holders to doll shoes are turned out 24 hours of the day at the Queen City Plastics Inc., 12 Harrison Street, an eight-year-old New Rochelle firm. Founded by Joseph Lubars of Brooklyn, president, the company set up offices here doing contract work for Rex Products Inc. After Rex left New Rochelle, Queen City Plastics started making a standard line of combs, purses, compacts and coin holders in addition to custom molding for other manufacturing companies. Between 25 and 40 are employed and the firm operates three full shifts. Mr. Lubars had been in the molding business for 20 years before setting up his own firm. Vice president is Henry Alexander of New York City.” (The Vintage Purse Museum highlighted the sentences above in bold to emphasize that Queen City Plastics was a wholesale supplier in addition to manufacturing bags under its Ilene label.)
Rex Products Inc., also mentioned in the 1954 article, was located at 111 Cedar St. in New Rochelle until 1950. It is a well known name among vintage compact and handbag collectors, usually as Dorset-Rex, which it became after merging with the Dorset company in 1951. It would’ve been quite a coup for Joseph Lubars to have acquired a contract with Rex Products. The Rex Products' factory was about three minutes from Queen City Plastics. (Rex's old building in New Rochelle is now a storage facility.)
Starting in the mid-1950s, Queen City Plastics made handbags with the Ilene label. This name was inspired by Joseph Lubars’s only daughter, Eileen, a talented pianist. The newspaper photo below is of Eileen, Joseph, and his second wife Sylvia, the mother of his two sons.
One of the brand’s most notable—and adorable—designs is a molded plastic clutch in a variety of colors, inset with rhinestone bees. Some of the newspaper advertisements for this product call these bags “Lucite.” However, “Lucite” was—as it is now—a catch-all marketing term, and not always accurate as to the exact composition of the material. Lucite is an acrylic, which is harder and heavier than molded plastic. Many bags that are called “Lucite,” are not actually made from this material, which is a trade name for a type of acrylic made by the Dupont company. (There were other trademarked acrylics, including Plexiglas and Perspex.) The trade names “Lucite” and “Bakelite” are often interchangeably—and incorrectly—used to identify plastic handbags and bag hardware that are made of molded thermoplastic. The Vintage Purse Museum's curator wrote an article about the different types of plastics used in handbags from the 1930s-1970s, which you can read here.
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Ilene-labeled bee bag from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum.
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| 10 Nov 1955, Thu Austin American-Statesman (Austin, Texas) Newspapers.com |
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22 May 1960, Sun Tulsa World (Tulsa, Oklahoma) Newspapers.com |
Ilene plastic handbags were more than likely made of cellulose acetate or a similar material, and possibly created on Joseph's brother-in-law William Lester’s patented machines. In a nutshell, a plastic injection molding machine uses raw material, often in the form of plastic pellets, as well as heat, compression, and metal molds. This would've been how Queen City Plastics created each piece of a handbag, with these parts then assembled by factory workers. Many molded plastic handbags, which were made by a number of companies (including Theresa Bag Co., Ranhill, Ascot, and others), were marketed to consumers as more affordable versions of acrylic bags made by Llewellyn, Wilardy and other handbag manufacturers of the era.
It’s quite possible that Joseph Lubars wholesaled some of these bags without the Ilene label to other handbag makers and/or retail stores. We have some in our collection that we can’t attribute to Queen City Plastics/Ilene handbags as they don’t have labels. However, due to their construction, the Ilene bags' newspaper ads we've found, and handbags we've seen online with the Ilene label, it's possible that these unlabeled bags are products of Joseph Lubars’ company. (Note: The Vintage Purse Museum never definitively identifies an unlabeled bag as being by a specific maker, unless it is authenticated by the maker themselves, or someone who worked for the maker.)
In 1962, a Standard-Star (New Rochelle, NY) newspaper headline said "Plastics Co Adds Items." Here's part of the text of the accompanying article, which didn't have much to do with the headline: “Queen City Plastics, located (at) 12 Harrison St., New Rochelle, 16 years, has a complex expansion problem as the new year dawns: The firm which has converted from smaller items in the plastic field to ladies' handbags, lamp shades and football helmets is located in the Cedar St. redevelopment area. Co-owner Joseph Lubars reports that an additional 60 workers have been employed but because of lack of space, are working under difficult conditions. About three years ago the company was permitted to construct a pre-fabricated building for warehouse use but cannot expand its site or buildings in the present area because of the Renewal Project. The company has a payroll of about $250,000 and employs some 100 persons. It wants to remain in the Queen City.”
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Unlabeled molded plastic box bag with initial, from the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. While we can't definitively identify it as a bag by Ilene/Queen City Plastics, it is similar to one of the Ilene handbags pictured in the newspaper ad below. 17 Jun 1960, Fri Tulsa World (Tulsa, Oklahoma) Newspapers.com |
The "Renewal Project" in the 1962 article cited above was a plan to revitalize the city of New Rochelle. The last classified ad (below) that we could find for Joseph Lubars's company was dated 1963. It's interesting to note that it was for "Ilene Bags, Inc." rather than Queen City Plastics, although we did find that the company was still referred to as Queen City Plastics in subsequent articles over the next two years, mostly in the context of the renewal project.
In 1962, an organization called New Rochelle Industries, Inc., formed by three attorneys, represented eleven "member business concerns" including Queen City Plastics. New Rochelle Industries, Inc.'s purpose was to work as a city "sponsor," alongside architects, to create and maintain an industrial district for these eleven businesses during the renewal project. In 1964, the city of New Rochelle "discharged" New Rochelle Industries, Inc. as a sponsor of its urban redevelopment, and named 7-Up Bottling Co. as its new sponsor. New Rochelle Industries, Inc. then sued the city, but the lawsuit was dismissed. (Note: There is obviously much more to this, but we're summarizing it for brevity.)
In 1965, Joseph Lubars was mentioned in a newspaper article as being on the board of directors of the Plastic Products Manufacturers Association, Inc., which is a good indicator that he wanted to continue working in that industry. But this was not meant to be as far as his tenure at Queen City Plastics. That same year, the city evicted Queen City Plastics from its 12 Harrison St. address in order to demolish the factory and surrounding buildings to make room for a shopping mall, which opened in 1967.
The Lubars family explained to us via email that they didn't know exactly what the negotiations were during this contentious period of the city's redevelopment plan. However, their understanding was that the city of New Rochelle eventually claimed eminent domain over the Queen City Plastics factory. Naturally, this did not go over well. According to the Lubars family, Joseph Lubars, his business partner Henry Alexander, and their attorney sued the city and won.
After the mall's 1995 closure, the city of New Rochelle once again decided to revitalize the area and allowed for the construction of the New Roc City entertainment center where the mall formerly stood. It opened in 1999 with a theatre, hotel, arcade, sports center and more, and still stands, with a number of changes to its tenants over the last 25 years.
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| Photo of Joseph Lubars, courtesy of the Lubars family. |
Joseph and his third wife, Sylvia, eventually retired to Florida, where he passed away in 1993. The address 12 Harrison St., New Rochelle, New York no longer exists, but luckily for vintage collectors, lovely and durable Ilene handbags have stood the test of time. We also can't forget those plastic combs, compacts, and coin holders! The extra little items you're excited to find when you acquire a vintage handbag may very well have been made by Queen City Plastics.
Special thanks to the Lubars family. Resources used for this article were Newspapers.com and MyHeritage.com, to which we have paid subscriptions. We also used Google and Familysearch.org. This article c2024 Wendy Dager/The Vintage Purse Museum. Please do not use photos or information from this article or other posts on our website without requesting permission, vintagepursemuseum@gmail.com.
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| Molded plastic handbag, white with glitter. No label, but possibly attributable to Ilene. From the collection of The Vintage Purse Museum. |
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