It is midnight — as though it were the appointed hour when the heroines of dancing parties are transformed, as in the tale of Cinderella... And while the revelers made merry and danced to Western strains in the verdant gardens of the Sofar Hotel, the stroke of twelve gave leave to six "trembling" heroines, the bags holding their national dress tucked under their arms, to climb with them to the upper floor and come down again wearing their contents — purely Eastern Lebanese garments. But the time was no "small" matter for them, even after the make-up and hairdressing were done, for they were compelled to wait a "great deal" until the "dissecting table" for the members of the jury could be brought into the hall!
They were presented to the public, in the presence of His Excellency the President of the Republic and his lady wife, by the editor-in-chief of this magazine, Mrs. Edvick Jureidini Shayboub, after the secretary of the Commissioner of Tourism and Summering, Miss Andrée Karmen, had handed them a "verbal" "certificate of passage." And at
last... the hour of examination arrived, and this half "dozen" came forward,
at their head a village "couple" made up of a wearer of the felt labbadeh cap with black sirwal trousers and "kiran" — Miss Bshouti, drawing by the hand Miss Chidiac, who played the wife of the labbadeh-wearer, known by her tantour (for the tantour was reserved for married women and emiras alone): a piece of metal sheathed in yellow satin cloth — a genuine one — crowned above the forehead by a small piece of mirror. And the spectator, watching the wife hang back under her husband's urging, might observe that her progress was perhaps hampered by the drawstring of her red "ruffled" sirwal!!
On her heels followed the lovely Mrs. Saba, an employee of the Commission of Tourism and Summering, in a costume of the Commission's own making: silver pendants cooed to the jet black of her hair, their echo answered by the ripplings of green damask and the yellow sirwal — a modern rendering of the dress of Miss Thabit, who came after her, a
The table of His Excellency the President at the Red Cross gala