Fashion — The Lebanese Couturière "Madame Saliha" Draws Her Authentic Taste from the Fashion Houses of Paris!

- Lebanese women, in her belief, are among the most elegant ladies in the world.
- Madame Saliha has long dressed princesses and brides from the Arab countries!
- She believes that Dior's successor, "Balenciaga," holds the reins of fashion in Paris today.

Elegance was born to go looking for woman! And the most wondrous among women is the elegant one — even in her simplicity!

Here in Lebanon we now have more than one magic pair of scissors that turns figures into moving statues. One of those dancing "scissors" is in the hands of Mrs. Rafiqa Saliha.

Madame Saliha's Atelier

A visit to her large atelier on Bechara El-Khoury Street here in Beirut will make you, Madam, wish that your wardrobe were roomy enough for the greatest possible number of dresses. Mrs. Saliha is aided by more than fifty assistants, among whom she distributes designs and lines to alight upon the shapes and colors of the fabrics.

Her establishment is ten years old. To it she gives every day and most of her nights, to satisfy tastes and fancies... to meet appointments, parties, and occasions with sweet, well-wrought finery...

And Lebanese women, in her expert opinion, are among the most elegant ladies in the world; and she is expert, too, in the tastes of the ladies of the Arab countries... How many princesses, visitors, and brides she has dressed... how many of their gowns she has adorned with flowering brilliance...

Dior's Successor

Her appointed meeting with the fashions of Paris and Europe comes in two visits every year — and if time permitted, she would renew the appointment, or double it! She comes back from her travels laden and loaded... in her pockets marvelous sketches and visions, which she gives body to, that they may parade before us at her annual show.

Madame Saliha says that Dior has left us a successor who now grips the reins of fashion. Will he, one wonders, slacken those reins at times, so that the recklessness of this fashion bolts away with him, and we are left astounded?

This successor is "Balenciaga" — of Paris, too! He appears to be "master of the situation," and often he compels the bearers of needle and scissors to imitate him, to follow his lines, and to await his opening surprises.

As for the wish of our lady here in Beirut, Lebanon: it is that time not deal stingily with her, but grant her the hours she needs... for dressmaking is a sweet art and hard to master — and a woman's elegance is more insistent still!