Created by Lebanese

World Fashions

... After spending seven years in the United States, where her husband, Dr. Karim Azkoul, was Lebanon's permanent delegate to the United Nations, Mrs. Eva Khoury Azkoul returned to Beirut, and we caught in her satchel sweet fragrances of what she had seen and heard in America of the news of the Lebanese there.

Mrs. Azkoul was kind enough to promise to bring the readers of "The Woman's Voice" the choicest of what is there: where has the Lebanese excelled, and where has he shone? And who knew that he had excelled even in the creation of fashions?

Let us listen to her here, telling us about the Maalouf family...

When I was asked to speak of what caught my attention and made an impression on me during the many years I spent in the United States, I felt it my duty to speak first of the manifestations of the splendid Lebanese activity in that country. I did not think, however, of taking up the various sides of this activity, for that would take many long articles, and it also exceeds the range of my limited experience and knowledge. In every field of practical life in the lands of the Mahjar there is a clear mark of the Lebanese's capacity, excellence, and self-made success, one that commands attention and deserves to be made known. I shall therefore confine this word of mine now to one particular side that struck me especially, as a woman, and drew my attention, so that I was moved to take an interest in it and to become acquainted with it: the contribution of the Lebanese to the art of women's fashions and their dazzling success in this field.

What encourages me to speak of this subject is the perfection of taste I have observed in the Lebanese woman since my return to Lebanon. Alongside the openness of her mind to culture and learning, her ideal quality as mother and housewife, her success in keeping pace with modern social life, and her interest in political and literary affairs, she is also conspicuously adorned with mastery, skill, and artistry in dress and adornment, and I can say that she perhaps at times surpasses the Western woman in this arena. For this reason I believe she will be pleased to learn that companions of hers, daughters of her own sex and homeland, have excelled in the creation, making, and production of women's fashions in a city considered today the largest and most splendid city in the world and one of the most important centers of fashion among the great capitals — I mean the city of New York.

I shall single out for mention in this article a Lebanese house for the manufacture of women's at-home apparel, the house of the "Perfect Negligee," because fortune favored me and I came to know it at close range, together with its owners, the Maalouf family; I followed its activity and saw for myself the signs of its success and its lead over many other American houses, for it is counted one of three houses in America that hold first place in the manufacture of this type of women's at-home wear.

This great house stands at one of the most important points of the commercial city, a few meters from the great Empire State Building and from Fifth Avenue, which is reckoned the heart of fine commercial life in New York. It specializes in producing the garments the elegant lady wears within the walls of her home, such as robes de chambre, negligees, bed jackets, formal pajamas, beaded cashmere sweaters, covers for lounge chairs, etc... This house creates the fashions of these beautiful garments, produces them, and distributes them to the greatest and most splendid stores throughout the United States, Canada, and Latin America, and in a large part of Europe.

As for its owners and managers, they are three siblings of the Maalouf family: Nasib, Nasiba, and Najla Maalouf. Their late father left them this house, and they threw themselves into working in it with the drive and ambition of youth. They introduced into it new elements of artistry in taste, invention, and renewal, and set about cutting their difficult path among a plentiful number of competitors who were stronger in position, more abundant in money, and better equipped than they, until they excelled in this work, drew to themselves the eyes of the great American stores in New York and in the other great American cities, and became among those pointed out with the finger.

To demonstrate the success they have achieved, it is enough for me to mention that among the great New York stores that buy their goods, display them in their windows, and sell them at steep prices in the most famous shops are... and... etc... And speaking of these stores, it pleases me to recall that snowy day of Christmas week in New York on which a great joy flooded me, almost rivaling my joy in the holiday itself, when I stood astonished behind a great crowd of people gathered before the splendidly beautiful windows of the Bonwit Teller store in Christmas week, and saw that the windows in their entirety had been given over to displaying the garments of the Perfect Negligee. I felt in that moment the intoxication of Lebanese pride, and I felt as if I would cry out to all the onlookers around me: these beautiful garments are the work of Lebanese!! That intoxication would come back to me, too, whenever I leafed through one of the great American fashion magazines and came upon a picture of a Perfect Negligee piece beside pictures of women's garments produced by the greatest artists of women's fashion in the world. And my esteem for the excellence of the Maaloufs, and my pride in them as a Lebanese woman, reached its utmost limit when the famous magazine "Life," which does not ordinarily concern itself with fashions, once appeared with the front page of its cover occupied by the picture of a piece produced by the Perfect Negligee. For the reader to appreciate this matter at its true worth, she must know that the appearance of a picture on the front cover of Life magazine is regarded in America as tantamount to a momentous world event.

Worth mentioning too is that the Maaloufs, besides the great service they render Lebanon merely by occupying this lofty position in the world of fashion, serve it also by the authentic Lebanese qualities they have preserved — uprightness and honor, generosity and hospitality, gentleness of character and mildness — qualities that draw to them, and to Lebanon, everyone who comes to know them. They have likewise preserved their intense attachment to the homeland, their pride in it, their jealousy for it, and their sympathy for its projects, so that the Lebanese who visits them in their beautiful home in the suburbs of New York feels that he grows more Lebanese by his contact with them.

In coming articles I shall take up some of the other Lebanese personalities who have distinguished themselves in a particular art and attained a lofty position in it.