Joseph Abboud

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American designer whose work is described as "updated but not too far out, and the fabrics he uses are excellent." Abboud’s garments are undressy, wearer-friendly with great eye-appeal as he understands men's desire for relaxed yet sophisticated clothing and is renowned for his fine tailoring, simple silhouettes and rich fabrics. He may arguably be considered the sole designer who bridges the gap between American and European menswear. Abboud put out his first collection in 1987 and since then, has received many honors, including the prestigious Menswear Designer of the Year Award two years in a row (1989 and 1990) from the Council of Fashion Designers of America. He works from a office-studio on the 27th floor above Fifth Avenue, New York. He sketches obsessively, while he’s on the phone, on airplanes, over meals. In 1995 he put out his "American Soft" collection for men. During his apprenticeship, he sold and bought clothes for Louis of Boston, the Tiffany of clothiers, then he designed for Ralph Lauren. In about 1985, he began to put out his own label. He has always loved beautiful things and favored "tactile values," the appeal to touch and feel, a factor familiar to women before men. Like the great Italians, Abboud designs for the narrow band of customers--one percent of all buyers--who are willing to spend $500 or more for a suit, and who make up the new world market in designer-label men's clothes. Abboud was raised in Boston's polyglot South End to first-generation Lebanese-American parents with an average boyhood with football and track. Aware of style from the time he was a teenager, he was "best-dressed in his senior class." During summer, he worked in the Public Garden pedaling a swan boat and at a men’s clothing store. With the unbeatable combination of brains and hard work, he attended the University of Massachusetts on a scholarship. Slender and personable, well-mannered and smartly dressed, he was a world away from the late ‘60s look of Army surplus and tie-dye. "Half the kids thought I was a professor," he joked about wearing a suit, as he went directly from school to his job at Louis, a store for the discriminating buyer with a top-scale credit card. On one of his first Saturdays at work in 1969, he sold a customer $2,600 worth of shirts and ties, a great start for the ambitious youth. Majoring in English and French literature, Abboud won a fellowship to study at the Sorbonne. Living in the Latin Quarter for a year and a half, he watched and learned how to wear a scarf – just so – the tailoring of the wealthy – the suave flair of the casual sophisticate – the insouciance of style. Returning to Boston, Abboud had three choices, pursuing a graduate degree at Yale, working as a high-school teacher or managing at Louis. He followed his heart and worked at Louis for eight years from 1972, becoming a protégé of Murray Pearlstein, a third-generation president of the famed clothiers. As both of Abboud’s parents died in 1971, Murray and Dorothy Pearlstein became his second family. In 1980, he joined Ralph Lauren’s New York HQ, soon becoming an associate director of design. His first season with his own line was the fall of 1986. He was launched into the pandemonium of backstage preparations to show a hundred outfits in a 20 minute display. His anxiety was unfounded; he sold to every important store in America: Bergdorf, Saks, Neiman Marcus, Louis. Two years later he went into partnership with GFT, a major Italian apparel conglomerate. He began to draw celebrity customers such as Bryant Gumbel, who was seen on TV five days a week in Abboud clothes. The fashion designer has published his memoir, "Threads," released in November 2004. Link to Wikipedia biography