VIVI'S BLACK LIZARD SKIN POCKETBOOK'S STORY

Before COVID. Sometime before Christmas 2019, thumbing through the Brooks Brothers catalog, the one that comes in the mail, a picture made me jump up, run to the bedroom closet, balance up on my toes on one foot and grope with one hand to the back of the shelf. Behind the orange fuzzy hat, Iris's aunt's knit skirt, Guileine's antique huipel, the burka and other things that slide off when I throw something else up there. IT IS. THE BROOKS BROTHERS BLACK LIZARD POCKETBOOK IS EXACTLY LIKE VIVI'S
Like the one I ferretted out from behind carefully folded cashmere shawls and beaded sweaters in plastic bags and other things Mike's older brother said I should look through before he invited the caregivers who had been with her the last few years and should take what mementos of her they'd like before his daughter called the Junior League Provisionals who' had promised they would deliver everything the Thrift Shop didn't want to the Goodwill. Goodwill would bundle what they didn't want for recycling. I had kept out Vivi's black lizard skin pocketbook. It said a lot.
The purse and shoes were on the opposite page from the models. The prices were on the page with the models. The price of the dress was $398, the purse, $2,498, the shoes, $288.

$2,498.00 for the purse!

Lucy Stone
I thought I should check recent sales on Ebay.. Vivi's has the crocodile mark of Lucille de Paris, just like the one on Ebay, but the one on Ebay is not $2,498.00
The new Brooks Brothers one is also Lizard, but made in Italy. Ebay's is used, like Vivi's. But then, the Italian one is a copy of the originals. Lucille de Paris sold custom made beaded bridal purses in Paris in the 1930s. Lucille was in her twenties and had two sons. She had come from Poland. Her husband, from Vienna. Others who sell Lucille de Paris vintage purses have reported that she and her husband Charles came to the US "sometime in the '40s." June 14, 1940, Nazis invaded Paris and marched up the Champs Elysee. July 16. 1942, French police on orders from the German army, began rounding up 13,152 Jews, including 4,115 children, They were sent to Auschwitz concentration
Lucille and Charles escaped with their two sons, Charles and Claude. They made it to New York and there had the good luck to be able to start a new business. How was the young couple, he from Vienna, she from Poland, supporting their two young sons in Paris when the Nazis marched up the Champs Elysee? Did he have a star of David on his arm as he laid the exquisite little purses Lucille had beaded out in the Bridal Shop? Parisian brides in Paris work beading manufacturing pocketbooks from exotic animal skins? They wouldn't have had to wrestle alligators any more than they had had to dive for pearlshe manufacturingcustom made purses started another business, this time selling handbags made of exotic animal skins to high end stores. According to a British dealer in mid-century fashion collections, Princess Margaret was known to have bought a Lucille de Paris bag at Saks Fifth Avenue. They advertised in the New York Times that they made their bags from American Alligators .Lucille de Paris's logo is not immediately recognizeable as a gold alligator reading a book

Lucille de Paris's logo, a Gold Alligator reading a book

he mid-1940s. They advertised in the The New York Times that they made their bags from American Alligators, and they even had the Alligator symbol as part of their logo.
 The company was very successful until 1969, when the use of alligator skins was banned, thereby forcing the end of production.

https://patch.com/maryland/kensington/vintage-lucille-de-paris-alligator-bag#:~:text=Lucille%20de%20Paris%20bags%20were%20created%20by%20Charles,the%20Alligator%20symbol%20as%20part%20of%20their%20logo.


Pokey McIlhenny <https://64parishes.org/entry/pokey-mcilhenny>
Kathy Vick https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_a4b99a2c-1812-530c-8feb-8e8042471bb2.html
history of alligator listing and delisting https://capitalresearch.org/article/the-great-gator-hoax-the-american-alligator-is-thriving-no-thanks-to-the-endangered-species-act/


2019 lizard skin banned in cal https://www.peta.org/blog/victory-california-lizard-hippo-caiman-skins-ban/
 alligator and lizard and others banned in CAL https://www.livekindly.com/california-historic-ban-alligator-skin-sales/


audubon zoo fee audubon zoo entrance fee
audubon zoo privatization 1975 Wikipedia questions later https://www.nola.com/news/politics/article_e44d357d-8f3f-5c5f-ba85-c0b0157e927b.html