Stella Hanania

Stella Hanania was born in Beirut, Lebanon, in 189. She was a prominent designer and buyer for the department store chain I. Magnin. Because of her influence over California's haute couture fashion world and given her capacity to attracti favor as an astute buyer of European fashions, she was repeatedly considered "Southern California’s czarina of fashion."

Hanania spent the first decades of her life in France, where she learned to sew in Paris. She then moved to New York. Here she worked for Bergdorf-Goodman as an assistant to fashion designer Bernard Newman. While still in New York, in 1937, she obtained American citizenship.

After the war, she followed Newman to Beverley Hills, working as his assistant. There she took part in Newman's creation of haute couture clothes for some Hollywood stars. In 1947 Newman returned to New York, while "Miss Stella" decided to remain in Los Angeles, where she began working for I. Magnin.

Over the next 30 years, she created elegant models and clothing for many of California's high society women. At the same time, thanks to her skills as a buyer, she directed what, by the time of her retirement in 1977, would become the last fashion salon in the United States to make made-to-order and/or custom couture-style gowns.

During the decades she worked for I. Magnin, twice each year, she went to Europe and purchased the couture collections. On one of such occasions, she participated in the First Italian High Fashion Show organized by Giovanni Giorgini in 1951 in the Florentine Villa Torrigiani. Rumor has it that Giorgini addressed her, asking: "Does it work? What is your impression?" and that Hanania significantly replied, "Paris did not excite us like that. It was worth the trip." She thereby sanctioned the beginning of Italian high fashion's success overseas.

In 1957 she was named Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year.

She died in January 1987 in Los Angeles.

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