Stella Hanania; Fashion’s Petite Czarina

Stella Hanania, the petite couturiere who was widely recognized both as one of America’s foremost dress designers while attracting favor as an astute buyer of European fashions, has died in her sleep in her Beverly Hills home.

I. Magnin’s “Miss Stella” for 35 years, considered Southern California’s czarina of fashion when she retired in 1977, was 83. She had been the only person still employed by a fashion store in the United States to make clothes to order in the couture style.

Born in Beirut, Lebanon, the woman who one day would be the only American designer honored by the governing body of the French haute couture was schooled in convents in Paris, where she learned to sew.

Joined Bergdorf-Goodman

She went to New York on a visit, “liked the town,” she said in a pre-retirement interview with The Times, and went to work in the custom-made salon of Bergdorf-Goodman, where she worked with designer Bernard Newman, “a man I adored.”

Newman moved to Beverly Hills, where he designed clothes for movie stars, and Miss Stella, who died Jan. 29, came along as his assistant. But when he opted to return to New York, she chose to stay in Los Angeles and went to work for I. Magnin in 1947.

For the next 30 years she was to create the elegant and understated clothes worn by many of Los Angeles’ most distinguished women. Concurrently, the retailing prowess she acquired permitted her to endure as director of what finally became America’s only custom salon.

She employed teams of seamstresses, pattern makers and cutters, many of whom remained with her throughout her career. Twice each year, she went to Europe and purchased the couture collections. She not only bought them but obtained permission to copy them.

Developed Her Style

The prototypal Stella style came to represent simple, feminine, comfortable clothes, all hand-done.

Scorning what she called today’s “plastic clothes,” she counseled individually with her clients, learning both their tastes and their characteristics, and then designed a wardrobe encompassing both.

“It’s the way women had their clothes made at the turn of the century. Ready to wear is only 70 years old,” she said in 1976.

The designs were not for everyone, however. Most of Miss Stella’s originals sold for more than $1,000.

She shunned pantsuits, saying that they were wonderful for men but on a woman of age displayed “rolls of fat like sausages.” She could be equally disparaging of popular garb, saying that women “wear it even if it’s not attractive.”

Designers’ Mentor

Over the years, she became friend, mentor and critic to designers ranging from Coco Chanel to Yves Saint Laurent but remained a behind-the-scenes, private persona. She was encouraged to write books but said that “would be telling stories on friends.”

And out of all this what was the most exciting thing that ever happened to her?

“That’s easy,” she said in 1957 after being named a Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year.

“It was one morning in November of 1937. I took some time off work and when I returned I was an American citizen.”