Beth Levine

Beth Levine (December 31, 1914 – September 20, 2006) was an American fashion designer most known for her designs from the 1940s through the 1970s.

Under the Herbert Levine label, bearing the name of her husband, Herbert Levine, Beth was the best-known American women's shoe designer from the 1950s to the early 1970s, and was called "America's First Lady of Shoe Design" until her death in 2006.

Beginnings She was born as Elizabeth Katz in Patchogue, New York, the third of five children of Anna and Israel Katz, Lithuanian Jewish emigrants who operated a dairy farm. In the 1930s, she moved to Manhattan and found work as a shoe model, then worked her way up from a stylist to head designer for I. Miller. She served as a Red Cross volunteer during World War II.

Death Beth Levine died in Manhattan of lung cancer on September 20, 2006, aged 91, survived by a daughter, Anna Thomson-Wilson, also of Manhattan, and grandsons H Hugo Thomson and William Davidson Thomson 3rd.