Dorothy Liebes The Mystery of the Matching Cuffs

Join us for our next Jewelry Detectives evening, Dorothy Liebes: The Mystery of the Matching Cuffs—with Charlotte von Hardenburgh, design historian and Research Fellow for the current exhibition A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes at Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum.

Dorothy Liebes (1897–1972) was an American textile designer, weaver, and color authority. She had a profound influence across a variety of design fields, shaping American tastes in areas from interiors and transportation to industrial design, fashion, and film.

von Hardenburgh will introduce us to the “Liebes Look” which combined vivid color, lush texture, and a glint of metallic. This combination also translated into Liebes’s own fashion philosophy, the “bright” of her ensembles was often a stunning Mexican silver necklace, a flamboyant brooch—or her signature matching metallic cuffs. Whose jewelry did Liebes wear and why? von Hardenburgh’s detective work will lead to a major discovery, along with surprising twists that round out this deep dive into Liebes’s powerful impact on twentieth century design.

A Dark, A Light, A Bright: The Designs of Dorothy Liebes published by Cooper Hewitt and Yale University Press will be available for purchase.

Watch the recording of the livestream here!