New Accessory Knowledge
First - the company that manufactured the compacts and cigarette cases was Henriette - who under their own name made exception pieces until the turned into jobbers for other companies. Now Henriette is actually confrimed to be the designers of all the early metal accessories, but then they disappear for a little while and when they return in 1947 I do not have proof that they still came from Henriette, but it is clear that after the 1947 return, they did not do the figurals.
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Second - the mysterious lips mirror was most likely manufactured in France. I have one that is no longer assembled, and you can clearly see the markings. There is no evidence as to who was making this for Eisenberg, or even why this piece has a cover from the 1940s, and an Ice mark. It's a huge confusing mess, but it's a wonderful piece. Sharon and I argued over this piece for years. (need to check patent marking for date)
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New Scarf Knowledge
The whole wonderful story of the Rene Boulet Willaumez scarves is hopefully known to you through the book, if not I will post it here, but I'm still trying to give Sharon's book a chance to shine.
But...they weren't the only scarves Eisenberg did. I knew this before the book was sent off, but by then Sharon, who had been overwhelmed by the book project from the very beginning, just wanted it over, despite my pleas for her to pull it and let me do it the way we'd originally planned; with all the contribution pieces, and with time for her photographer to redo the poor images he'd fallen into creating during the months on the project. But she didn't want to apporach Schiffer with the truth of what she'd not gotten done, and sadly, there was only so much I could accomplish in such a short amount of time, especially when I didn't own any of the project.
So I will show some samples of the scarves here. They are all silk, all have very elaborate themes, and I've purchased and seen enough, to know they made a wonderful batch of them. There are no ads for these pieces that I've found, but they strike me as being closer to the 1950s than the 1930s.
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New Handbag Knowledge
Despite all the years of looking at Eisenberg items, I had come to believe that all the bags were "evening" and black. But that is not the case. I was fortunate enough to find a woman who had a brown "kelly design" leather day bag. It would be highly unlikely that Eisenberg Originals would be on only one design, so there have to be more out there. I'm waiting for them to show up...or to be contributed...hint, hint.
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New Perfume Knowledge
Now this baffles the heck out of me, and cost me a pretty penny to show you... There was a perfume, bottled and labeled, and apparently then pulled, entitled Daring - see photos. I haven't had the chance yet to research if Daring was used by another company for a fragrance, whether they just thought it was the wrong title, or what the reason was, but Daring sits on the shelf, but never makes it to market. I had to buy my own copy of the photo to show you.
New Clothing Knowledge
First - It's included in the label section, but I had no idea until I found this dress, that Irma Kirby had done limited, or one-of-a-kind, designs for the Suwanee Ensembles line. I knew about her signature silk gowns, but to find that she had embraced the more practical cotton fabrics with exclusive styles was a wonderful discovery.
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Second - the Suburban label is finally shown. I've not yet found this label on an actual piece of clothing, though I can point to jewelry that likely dates from the line. But after a very frustrating search I finally got my hands on the one ad that shows the label.
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New Mens News
Thanks to a wonderful catalog I got my hands on, there were mens cosmetic accessories! Yep. We knew about the tie clip and the money clip, but now there's proof that there were soaps and such for men. Now I have not seen, in person, the catalog that is featured in the Eisenberg Originals book, and think Schiffer provided that to help Sharon out. I did buy that same catalog once but the lady could never find it to mail to me and she broke my heart. If you know that contributor to the book, or you have that catalog, please contact me, I'd love to show it completely.
As an aside, I did not add in any of those "quotes" that come from other jewelry collecting books at the beginning of sections, and do not agree with all of them. I also did not put a single piece outside of its proper place in the timeline, but Sharon had control of editing, and she always wanted to throw the timeline out and simply group things together, so she did. It might have been possible to do the vignettes of pieces together as a special photo in sections, if we had gotten all the other pieces for the book that were supposed to be included. But when Sharon limited the book to her pieces, and then out of necessity had to include some of mine, and even a few others' to finish the last jewelry section that she herself did not collect, it robbed the book of a lot of depth and display options. I did not approve of the photos her photographer took of my pieces and had actually asked her to use images I supplied that were more accurate; many of her pieces are over lightened with wonky colors due to poor lighting and tweaking, this goes back to her issues with getting the photos taken, but she chose to use Steve's photos of my pieces anyway to keep consistency. It's terribly disappointing as the photos done by family at least showed them realistically, if not with the greatest photography skill.
