Lea Gottlieb

Lea Gottlieb was born in 1918 in northeastern Hungary and was raised in poverty by an aunt.[1] She met Armin Gottlieb shortly before World War II while working as a bookkeeper at his family's raincoat factory, which he was managing.[1]

During the Nazi occupation of Hungary, Armin was sent to a forced-labor camp while Lea and the couple's two young daughters spent several years in hiding in and around Budapest.[1][2] Among the places they sheltered was a pit behind the house of a Christian who aided them.[1] Accounts of Gottlieb's wartime resourcefulness describe her carrying a bouquet of flowers — variously identified as daisies or chrysanthemums — when moving through the city, using the blooms to obscure the yellow Jewish star pinned to her clothing and attract less notice from Nazi soldiers.[3][2] Documentary filmmaker Dalit Kimor later observed that those wartime bouquets became an inspiration for entire collections.[2] Armin survived the labor camp and the couple reunited after his liberation.[1]

After the war, the Gottliebs established a raincoat factory in Czechoslovakia before deciding to build a new life in Israel.[1] Gottlieb had also studied biochemistry before emigrating.[4]

Lea and Armin Gottlieb arrived in Israel in 1949 aboard a ship called Kati, carrying eight dollars between them.[1][5] A Ynet account says that after processing at the absorption center in Be'er Ya'akov, they moved to a rented apartment on Dizengoff Street in Tel Aviv.[4] Gottlieb later recalled the early years plainly: "We came with nothing, without money, with nowhere to live, the first two or three years were very, very hard."[1]

The couple attempted to revive their raincoat trade, but Israel's predominantly dry and sunny climate made the business unviable.[1][6] Gottlieb sold her wedding ring to buy a sewing machine and began making children's clothing to generate income; the family subsequently moved into an abandoned apartment in Jaffa.[1] Because rain fell for only a few months of the year, Armin and Lea recognized they needed to produce something suited to the country's long, warm seasons.[5] As Gottlieb put it years later, "it rains here only three months a year" — so swimwear became the logical answer.[5]

The company's first swimsuits used cotton at the front and elastic fabric at the back, with black or white dot patterns, since Lycra had not yet become available.[5] Gottex recorded its first export, to Malta, in 1954, followed by sales to Canada and then a rapidly expanding list of markets.[5]

Lea Gottlieb co-founded Gottex Models Ltd. with her husband Armin, serving as its chief designer throughout the company's rise.[6] The name combined "Gottlieb" and "textiles."[7] Sources differ on the exact founding year. Fashion Forward identifies 1956 as the year the swimwear brand was established, while Ynet says Gottlieb switched from raincoats to swimsuits that year and that the first printed design, featuring a rose pattern, sold approximately 1,000 units.[4][8] A 2008 Globes interview placed the founding as early as 1949, though this may refer to the earlier business rather than the swimwear brand specifically.[5]

Gottlieb's central design innovation was to treat the swimsuit as a fashion garment rather than purely functional sportswear.[9] She developed coordinated beach outfits by pairing swimsuits with matching tops, pareos, and skirts.[6] The company's production methods set it apart from ordinary ready-to-wear: exhibition curator Ayala Raz described Gottex as using couture sewing, technically challenging materials, hand embroidery, and silk-screen printing.[8] Computerized cutting eventually handled 40% of production, with the remainder done by hand.[6]

Gottlieb was among the first designers to introduce a swimsuit made of printed latex and, in 1958, among the first to incorporate Lycra-blend fabrics.[9] Her designs drew on Israeli landscape colors, the works of artists including Chagall, Gauguin, and Miró, and her travels.[9] Another account associates her palette with desert yellow, Mediterranean aqua, Jerusalem-stone pink, Lake Tiberias blue, and Galilee greens.[7] She assembled rich collages from these inspirations as working boards for each collection.[3] Recurring floral motifs — particularly daisies and chrysanthemums — linked her creative work to her wartime experience.[3][2]

The brand's stated ambition was to replace the old-fashioned swimwear of its era and bring glamour to the beach.[10] That ambition was quickly rewarded: Gottex swimsuits appeared in prominent fashion magazines and were stocked at Harrods in London and Bloomingdale's in New York.[10] The company presented collections at New York Fashion Week and enlisted Brooke Shields in an advertising campaign.[10] One particularly celebrated creation — Gottlieb's all-white "Jerusalem of Gold" collection — featured a high priest's breastplate rendered on a bodice and was shown on runways worldwide to the song of the same name, receiving rave reviews.[11] In the 1980s, Gottex designed a strapless one-piece that was described as becoming the world's best-selling swimsuit.[10]

By 1984, Gottex had reached $40 million in annual sales.[1] The company expanded into beachwear, including kaftans, wide trousers, embroidered skirts, and pareos.[9] It also launched sub-lines including "Free by Gottex" for young working women and "Lady Gottex" for older customers.[6] Gottex devoted roughly $3.5 million per year, about 10% of turnover, to research and development in technology, prints, and materials.[6] At its peak, it sold in more than 80 countries and was widely credited with helping put Israel on the map of high fashion.[6]

After Armin Gottlieb died in 1995, Lea faced mounting difficulties in managing the company.[5] With debts reported at $35 million, she sold 80% of Gottex to Lev Leviev and the holding company Africa Israel Investments in 1997.[5] Under the new ownership, Gottex returned to profitability: the company recorded a $2 million profit in 1999, reversing a $17 million loss from prior years, and exceeded $30 million in sales in 2000, with 85% of those sales going to export.[6]

Gottlieb remained on the design team after the sale, continuing to work into her eighties.[6] Her relationship with the restructured company eventually deteriorated, and she formally resigned on February 2, 2001, writing that it was difficult to leave the workplace she had founded and to which she had given her abilities and labor for more than a generation.[5] In 2009, ownership of Gottex was transferred to businessman Joey Schwebel.[4]

Following the death of her daughter Yehudit from cancer, Gottlieb returned to swimwear design and launched an independent line under her own name.[5] Sources place the start of LEA either in 2005 or six years after her 2001 resignation, implying 2007; she continued producing collections under the label until late in her life.[8][12]

Lea and Armin Gottlieb had two daughters, Miriam and Yehudit, also known as Judith.[4][5] Yehudit Gottfried worked closely with her mother in Tel Aviv and died of cancer at 59.[3][4] Miriam, later known as Miriam Ruzow, moved to New York; Gottlieb sent her there at age 24 in 1966 to establish a Gottex showroom.[3] Miriam later said she admired her mother's strength but noted that "there were emotional ties that didn't exist," and she observed that Gottlieb never wanted to discuss her Holocaust experience, although Gottlieb eventually made a recording of her testimony for Yad Vashem.[3]

Gottlieb was widely described as world-renowned and as the "queen of Israeli fashion."[13] Gottex became a pioneer in Israeli merchandise exports.[13] Documentary filmmaker Dalit Kimor called Gottlieb "ahead of her time," noting that her embrace of bold colors and Lycra was groundbreaking.[3]

In 2008, Yad Vashem featured Gottlieb in its exhibition "My Homeland: Holocaust Survivors in Israel."[14] A later account said the exhibition devoted more space to her than to any other subject.[11] Standing before pieces from her forty-year design career, she described her use of color as an expression of her "eternal sense of optimism."[14] Her floral motifs connected her design work with survival and rebuilding, tracing back to the flowers she carried while moving through Nazi-occupied Budapest.[3][2]

Lea Gottlieb died at home in Tel Aviv on November 17, 2012.[1][10]

Accounts do not agree on the beginning of Gottex. The Center for Israel Education dates Lea and Armin Gottlieb's swimsuit work to 1953, while the Jewish Virtual Library places the shift from raincoats to swimwear in 1954.[1][6] Fashion Forward says the swimwear brand was established in 1956, whereas a 2008 Globes profile gives 1949.[8][5] The difference may reflect varying definitions of the earlier clothing business, the move into swimwear, and the formal establishment of the brand, but the cited sources do not resolve the chronology.