The case of Dr Charlotte Bach
Maker: Dr C. Bach, c.1967
Case on loan to museum
Leather case, 60cm, size 11 Norman Hartnell nylons, silk undergarments, foam constructs
Museum no: F.033
Born biologically male in a working-class area in Budapest, Karoly Hajdu came to England in 1948 with a plan to reinvent himself as a Baron.
He changed names throughout his life, firstly as Michael Karoly, owner of an exclusive hypnotherapy clinic in Mayfair, and later, after 20 scandalous years, including several aliases, two bankruptcies and jail time for fraud, as Charlotte Bach PhD.
Bach was best known for her fringe theory of evolution and hefty, never-published thesis Homo Mutens, Homo Luminens, in which she proposed every human was born with male and female aspects and the unconscious desire to experience life as the 'opposite' sex was the driving force behind evolutionary progress.
Bach's ideas developed a cult following that intrigued her contemporaries, such as Colin Wilson, inspiring his work The Misfits: The Study of Sexual Outsiders (1988).
The suitcase tenders hidden clues to the various identities of its owner and their physical and intellectual progression.
