Omersa & Company Leather Cat Footstool/ Doorstop, English, circa 1960.

Leather cat footstool – doorstop by Dimitri Omersa for Liberty’s of London Distributed by Abercrombie & Fitch.
English, circa 1960.

height: 7 in. 18 cm.,
width: 15 in. 38 cm.,
depth: 8 in.20 cm.

Dimitri Omersa (1927-1985), a Yugoslav by birth, had been a naval officer and a political prisoner having been imprisoned by Tito for 10 years after the second world war. Dimitri and his wife Inge came to England in 1955 settling at Lavender Croft, a sanctuary for refugees in Hitchin, Hertfordshire.
Dimitri Omersa found work in the leather trade representing a small leather company in Hitchin. It is there where he met ‘Old Bill’ at Liberty’s. ‘Old Bill’ was preparing to retire and agreed to have Dimitri Omersa to take over the business and continue the supply of pigs to Liberty’s. The business was re-located to Hitchin in 1958. Omersa had ideas for other animals in leather including the elephant, donkey and the leather rhinoceros.

Omersa began marketing the animals in North America. In 1963, he won a gold medal at the Californian State Fair for the leather Donkey. The “stuffed” animals caught the eye of Abercrombie & Fitch––the purveyor of fantasies to the rich and famous. A&F sold the animals from the mid 1960’s into the late 1980’s.

An Omersa cat was included in property offerings from the The Estate of Philip Roth + Select Additions By Litchfield Auctions, Jul 20, 2019.

Andy Warhols muse Edie Sedgwick was photographed on her super king Omersa rhino photographed for a 1965 edition of vogue magazine. Actress, Sienna Miller recreated the scene in the film ‘factory girl’.