Life
Celebrating the Kindertransport refugee who dressed Britain's Jewish brides
Nettie Spiegel became a top bridal designer after arriving in Britain with just a suitcase
October 19, 2023 18:00
Nettie Spiegel became a top bridal designer after arriving in Britain with just a suitcase
October 19, 2023 18:00Ask anyone in the street if they’ve heard of Neymar, and they’ll assume you’re referring to a famous Brazilian footballer.
But for a significant number of Jewish women that moniker belongs primarily to a much-loved and never forgotten fashion designer, Nettie (Natalie) Spiegel, whose couture label Neymar dressed generations of Jewish brides, and is celebrated in the Museum of London Dockland’s new Exhibition, Fashion City, How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style.
The exhibition, which opens today, features one of Neymar’s exquisitely beaded wedding dresses, which can still command upwards of £3,000 on vintage fashion sites.
But the true value of the dress lies in what it symbolises: the story of the penniless Jewish refugee who came to London and not only made a success of her life in her adopted homeland, but who also shaped the British fashion industry.
This year marks what would have been Nettie’s centenary (she died in 2005, aged 82) .
The youngest child of a middle-class German Jewish family, she was born in Berlin in 1923.
Following a raid on the family home, her father’s arrest and the horrors of Kristallnacht, Nettie’s parents decided to send her to safety to London. On March 3, 1939, aged just 15, she waved goodbye at Berlin Station and boarded the Kindertransport. She never saw her parents again.
The exhibition’s lead curator, Dr Lucie Whitmore, who has extensively researched Nettie’s life and career, says that upon arrival in London, Nettie moved in with the Duval family in Stamford Hill. “In return for providing her with a home, they asked if she’d do childcare for them,” Whitmore recounts.
Sara Raiher in her Neymar wedding dress (Photo: Courtesy of Sara and Michael Raiher)
“But within weeks of arriving, Nettie — who had taken some fashion drawing classes in Berlin — had decided to pursue her dream of working in the fashion industry.”
Legend has it that she walked up and down Great Portland Street with her sketches until she found someone who’d employ her. After securing a job as a machinist, she took evening classes in dressmaking at the Regent Street Polytechnic.
“When she told the Duvals she now couldn’t do the childcare, they asked for half her wages in rent,” says Whitmore. “But when the Duvals moved away from London in September 1939, they left an envelope for her. It contained all the money she’d paid them.
A note explained that they’d never wanted payment, but were worried somebody so young wouldn’t know how to look after her money. They’d saved it for her so she could support herself. Despite the trauma she went through, there are many instances of such kindness in Nettie’s life — kindnesses she made sure to return.”
Nettie found a mentor in bespoke designer Raie Sclare, who helped her to set up her own business with husband Jakob “Jack” Spiegel, a fellow refugee who she’d known in Berlin — they’d gone to dancing classes together and they married in 1943. She named her label Neymar because it combined her first name with her maiden name, Margolies.
The Spiegels established a couture showroom, first in their home in Stamford Hill and then on Berkeley Street, Mayfair, in the heart of London’s couture neighbourhood.
This is where Nettie designed high-end occasion wear for the singers and actresses of the day, including Fenella Fielding and Renée Houston. In 1949, she also made costumes for Cecil Landau’s musical Sauce Tartare starring a young Audrey Hepburn.
