Designer Sharon Wilkes was inspired by her grandmother, Sarafina Landau (her Omama), a Holocaust survivor. Her grandmother was an accomplished designer who owned one of the most successful couture houses in Vienna with her sisters, prior to the Nazi invasion. Her Omama had lost everything when she fled Austria in 1938, but “never lost her flair for fashion or elegant taste.”
Wilkes started out in fashion at Parsons in New York City and became assistant to Oleg Cassini, Jacqueline Kennedy’s dress designer. She later went on to become design director for brands like Slazenger, Adidas, Pony, Champion, and Ellesse. She made a name for herself in activewear, designed the first Lycra bodysuit in white to be worn at Wimbledon, and later created her own namesake line.
After moving to DC, she took a hiatus from fashion, obtaining a law degree to work as an advocate in the nonprofit world for causes close to her heart. It wasn’t until she designed a wedding gown and the bridesmaids’ dresses for her daughter’s wedding, that she decided to re-enter the fashion industry and start a handbag line. Today, she works with the finest Italian artisanal factories, which use only ethical manufacturing practices and sustainably sourced materials. She also donates five percent of each sale to The Kennedy Forum for Mental Health and she has recently launched The Women, Life, Freedom bags inspired by women in Iran. A portion of the profits from the Freedom Bags will be given to the nonprofit NUFDI, National Union for Democracy in Iran.
We caught up with Wilkes to learn more.
Your grandmother was an accomplished designer for one of the most successful couture houses in Vienna. Tell us about her journey and how it inspired you.
My grandmother is part of a heritage of strong women in my family. Her mother, my great-grandmother left an abusive marriage at the beginning of last century in Romania and moved to Vienna, Austria with four of her five young adult children. It’s hard to imagine someone of that generation, of the Victorian era, leaving a long-time marriage and moving to another country. My grandmother, Serafina, was the youngest and extremely creative. Her older sisters set up a custom dress shop that eventually grew to be one of the finest couture houses in Vienna. Their atelier was in the center of Vienna, and their work areas on the outskirt of town. My Omama, as we called her, met my grandfather, Jacob, at the New Year’s Eve masked ball in Vienna, who was enticed by the beautiful costume she created. They soon fell in love and were married within the year.
My grandfather emigrated from Galicia by himself to Vienna as a young teenager and by his mid 20s owned, with a partner, one of the largest chocolate companies in Vienna. Through their determination and hard work, they created a beautiful life together. Within a few years my mother was born, and she was doted upon by not only her parents, but a wonderful extended family whom she saw frequently and during the holidays.
However, as the Nazis took over Vienna, the beautiful life abruptly came to an end. Shortly after, my grandmother and her sisters’ shop was destroyed during Kristallnacht. The Nazi laws imposed made it illegal to do business with Jews. These laws restricted Jewish ownership of property allowing the Nazis to confiscate almost all the Jewish-owned homes and the majority of all the contents within, thus, my grandparents lost their beautiful apartment in the center of Vienna. My grandfather remained working but only because he had a gentile partner but was forced to surrender his share of the business to the Nazis for close to nothing. My grandmother witnessed on two occasions my grandfather being arrested by the Nazis. Clearly she must have feared that she or her young children would not see him again, and that they too would be arrested.
By now it was 1939 and although my grandfather was able to bribe himself twice out of Buchenwald concentration camp, he knew the next arrest would be for all of them, and likely death. Fortunately, a wonderful and brave friend at the Italian consulate falsified visas for the entire family to enter northern Italy by train. This allowed them to escape to safety and live in Abazzia near Trieste until they were able to emigrate to the United States. Although Omama and her family were fortunate to survive and escape, the extended family that they shared would never be again. Omama would likely never be able to see her mother and beloved siblings and their families again, as their only escape route was to Bolivia. The wonderful life Omama had known was lost forever, but as a woman in her mid 40s with no money she would need to stay strong for her children. At one point, the family could only obtain one visa to the United States and my mother was chosen to come by herself at 10 on a ship to New York to live with her aunt and uncle. My Omama had to live through wondering if she, my grandfather, and her young son, would also be able to safely come to the United States and be reunited with her daughter. When Omama finally came with my grandfather and uncle she needed to learn a new language and knew that she could never regain what she once enjoyed professionally in Vienna. Despite the trauma of these life-changing losses, my Omama was never angry or bitter. On the contrary, she embraced her new country for the opportunities it gave her children and felt blessed they survived.
As the only granddaughter of my Omama, I was always very close to her and adored spending time with her. She taught me how to sew as a child and was meticulous in how she dressed from head to toe. Though she had lost any material possessions she once had due to the Anschluss, her great style and talent was so inate that she could turn a simple outfit to something very special in the way she wore it. I remember her taking a few yards of remnant fabric and creating wonderful outfits. At 4’11” she was a beautiful doll always dressed stylishly and would never leave home without her lipstick on, and nails done! She encouraged my sketching and designing. She would recall fashion shows in Paris and would serendipitously sketch ideas on paper napkins for inspiration. Though she loved vibrant colors and she always balanced them with simple classic shapes, this design principle has been a strong influence in the way I create.
Tell us about your background in fashion and how you started your career as a designer.
I was very fortunate to attend Parsons School of Design during their first years of merging with the New School of Social Research, as it was called, to obtain a BFA. In many ways Parsons was a continuation of how my grandmother believed fashion should be — beautifully made and fitted, unique but wearable and chic, as well as have a timeless element of good taste.
This sense of detail, first from my Omama, then nurtured and refined at Parsons has stayed with me. Despite being a young fashionista even in my teen years (Betsey Johnson for Paraphernalia, anyone?), I was also very athletic. I loved to ski and play tennis and even taught some classmates yoga. One of my wonderful teachers at Parsons, a great talent in his own right, the late Michael Vollbracht, saw that my ability to understand the mechanics of tennis and skiwear coupled with my strong design and color sense would make me a great candidate for the growing activewear industry.
His advice was invaluable and soon after graduation I was hired by Oleg Cassini as his design assistant, working on his tennis and swimwear licenses. Within a few years, I was hired by Slazenger as design director of their tennis collections and over the years worked for most of the major activewear companies globally, including Adidas, Champion, Pony, and Ellesse.
Talk a little about the founding of your contemporary sportswear label as a young entrepreneur.
Since I had great success at very young age within seven years of graduation, I was encouraged by friends and family to think of creating my own label line. I had already done ready to wear sportswear for a company in England and even with my activewear, there was more and more overlap into casual active inspired street wear. In those days, the early ’80s you did not need a huge amount of money to start a business. In addition, there were a number of freelance pattern and sample companies that worked with small start up designers.
Also, this was a time where there was so much manufacturing being done all throughout the garment center, and there was a myriad of textile producers still in the US.
Since so many of my textile contacts emanated from the active wear I designed and given the trend of more comfortable and packable contemporary fashion, it seemed natural for me to create fashion with velour, cotton lycra and even jacquard sweat shirting as well as wool jersey. I created a line utilizing these fabrics and found a wonderful contractor, Jack Sauma (yes, the founder of Mood), who became a dear friend. Jack’s company sewed my collection and I was able to warehouse my inventory and rent the front area of his shop for my office. I was able, through a cold call, to meet with Bergdorf Goodman, and they became one of my best customers putting the collection in its then 57th Street windows, catalogue visibility, and personal appearances.
I also sold Bloomingdale’s, where I did a personal appearance as well. The other store, which was a great customer and the one who paid the timeliest, was Nordstrom. I was featured in many WWD best of NY and other publications.
However, although you didn’t need a lot of funding to start, once you were up and running cash flow was critical. As a result, I had to rely on bank loans. Most of you reading this can’t imagine that during the ’80s interest rates grew to 19 percent. When money is costing you an additional 19 percent and you pay for goods with letters of credit to get delivery, pay your contractor upon completion of the order, but then wait sometimes 90 days or more for payment of my goods, it became impossible to self-fund.
What inspired you to start your most recent collection of handbags?
My personal life brought me down to Washington, as I remarried. My girls were still fairly young, four and eight. Without any Skype or even Facetime, I found traveling to Asia and all the other cities related to building a collection for the company I was design director for more and more difficult. I decided to take leave of the industry and returned to school to get a law degree. Outside of an occasional special occasion to design, I only returned to designing prompted by my daughter Michaela’s request that I design her entire wedding party. Notwithstanding it was a beautiful group at a dream location, the Great Synagogue in Rome.
Michaela and Zac had a beloved Beagle they got during their year in Israel. The beagle and his parents moved in with us upon their return to the states and we were all very attached to this soulful dog. However, clearly, he could not attend the wedding despite her Maid of Honor coming up with the hash tag: #MakingItLegalForTheBeagle. Since I was already working with an embroiderer in India, I created a graphic utilizing a wonderful photo of Loki, and then had all the cities they lived in plus his name embroidered on the bag. The tag “making it legal for the beagle” was on the back and I surprised her during the rehearsal dinner, and she was thrilled. This was my first step into handbags.
Tell us about how you’re inspired by friend and fashion icon, the late Judith Lieber.
Some years ago, as a member of the Jewish Center of the Hamptons and being the volunteer who had coordinated their benefit fashion shows, I was asked to work with Judith Lieber and help plan a visual retrospective of her work for a luncheon that she would be honored at. At the time, ironically, I was already heading to law school, never imagining life would bring me back to the industry to one day design handbags. Working with the Liebers was an extraordinary experience, one I will never forget.
I would have lunch there often during this time and hear all the wonderful stories of their business and their amazing lifelong romance. Judith’s husband, Gus was a gifted artist in his own right, but together they built one of the most successful and creative handbag companies in the world. When I met with the Leibers this was before they had a museum, but I had the privilege to be shown many of her archived handbags as well as see the studio where Gus painted. Little did I know that over 15 years since those days I spent with Judith and her husband, she would be the designer who was the greatest inspiration of my handbag collection.
Tell us a little about the production in Italy and the sustainably sourced/finished materials that you use for your bags.
I personally have always sought apparel and accessories made in Italy. Given the special place Italy had in my family’s survival, and the extraordinary reputation of the Italian made label, it was the best place for me to manufacture.
I was fortunate over the years in developing my resources in Italy, to work with some wonderful artisan factories — many that are woman owned. The factories we work with have the highest ethical treatment of the workers, many that go back generations.
I also learned that beautiful exotic skins do not have to be endangered. I love real leather and beautiful durable exotics like Judith Lieber used in her earlier bags, Karung and Elaphe. I learned that unlike snake like Python, Karung and Elaphe are both water snakes and used for medicine and food in Asia. The skins, instead of being thrown out, are sent to Italy where they are transformed into the beautiful colors and textures that makes a handbag special.
Talk about your work as a lawyer, working with nonprofits as an advocate in DC.
Despite always loving fashion, I grew up in a family that was blessed to be living the American dream. My mother was extremely patriotic to the country that eventually gave her and her family refuge. My dad was a first generation American, who was the first to attend college in his family and with hard work and vision was able to build a successful food industry business. As such, my parents always took their right to vote as a great responsibility as well as using their voices as volunteers for issues that they felt were important. My mother, due to her own bouts with mental illness became an activist for NAMI. Her crusade was to break the stigma by using her experiences very publically. She also used her beautiful operatic voice to perform for many charities gratis.
My dad was a young man when Israel became a state in 1948. He was acutely aware that had Israel been established 10 years earlier, millions of Jewish lives would have been saved. My dad would become one the leaders of our community securing Israel bonds to build the fledgling nation as well as a supporter of his alma mater for scholarships.
Growing up and knowing this formative history, I realized that my law degree would be best used as a powerful tool to advocate on issues that touched our lives. As a child of a Holocaust survivor, I felt it was imperative that my work strengthens Israel’s right to exist as well as building upon the close relationship the United States and Israel have. During this time, I worked for an extraordinary former Ambassador/Lawyer the late Ambassador Richard Schifter, who himself shared a lot of my mother’s history. He though, unlike my mother, never saw his parents once he was granted a visa to come to the states. They perished in Mauthausen. With his wonderful guidance, I learned about the unjust treatment and demonization of Israel in the UN. Ironically, this was perpetuated even by countries who were allies and friends of the United States. Since the U.S. and Israel’s positions were always aligned, these allies ended up voting against both the United States and Israel in the UN. I built a bipartisan task force of Members of Congress to work with these allies’ Washington Ambassadors to make them aware of how their vote is not only detrimental to Israel but also to the national security of the United States. Although I never practiced law per se, it was a wonderful education and gave me the opportunity to do work I could feel as passionately about as I did fashion.
You donate 5 percent to the Kennedy Forum for Mental Health and have created two exclusive bags to support the revolution in Iran. Can you talk a little about how your bags are giving back?
I believe this philosophy of giving back was ingrained in me at a fairly young age as it is a tenent in Judaism that each of us has a responsibility to heal the world. One person, an Italian consulate in Vienna saved my mother and her family’s life. Thus, I learned early on as a result, each of us can make a difference.
Unfortunately, I have lived through the inadequacies of mental health care in this country, both with my mother and now with my younger daughter. As such, I feel it’s important to use these experiences and advocate for change. The Kennedy Forum headed up by former Congressman Patrick Kennedy and his educator wife, Amy, utilizes Patrick’s own experiences as both a Member of Congress who initiated the first mental health parity act and his struggles with bipolar illness and addiction. The Forum seeks to work with legislators, healthcare, the medical groups and communities to move this country to treat mental illness, a brain disease, the same way as physical illness is treated. This is critical to help the millions of people who suffer from these afflictions to have some chance of a productive life.
The Women, Life, Freedom bags were inspired by the women in Iran, who rose up against the theocratic regime after the death of a beautiful young woman, Masha Amini, while in custody with the morality police. Her crime was wearing her hijab incorrectly. As a result of the voices of these Iranian women and their response to her death, they are the driving force of the powerful movement to regain a democratic Iran. The purpose of these bags is to keep this movement at the forefront of countries, especially the US and EU, to gain further international support for this movement. A portion of the profits from the Freedom Bags will be given to a nonprofit, NUFDI, which advocates through building closer ties to the United States to promote democracy and human rights in Iran.
