Pathbreakers of Arab America--Fifth in Series: Joseph Abboud
By: John Mason / Arab America Contributing Writer
This is the fifth in Arab America’s series on American pathbreakers of Arab descent. The series includes personalities from entertainment, business, science, academia, and politics, among other areas. In this series, Arab America seeks to represent a broad array of Arab Americans, including a mix of women and men, countries of origin, and fields of work. Our fifth pathbreaker is Joseph Abboud, Arab American, stellar menswear fashion designer, an amazing entrepreneur, proud descendent of Lebanese Maronite Christians, and a generous donor to charitable causes.
Abboud—A Life “Behind the Seams,” a Leader in High-Stakes World Menswear Fashion Design
Joseph Abboud was born in Boston, Massachusetts on May 5, 1950. His immigrant parents were a working-class Lebanese Maronite Catholic family. They began their new life in the South End of Boston, later moving out and “up” to the suburb of Roslindale. According to Wikipedia’s list of Arab Americans, Abboud’s father Joseph worked in a candy factory, and his mother, Lila, was a seamstress. He had one sister, Nancy Ash; she and Lila died of breast cancer.
Abboud was the first person in his family to graduate from a four-year college. He received a degree in English and French Comparative Literature from the University of Massachusetts-Boston. During college, he spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris on scholarship and calls the experience the defining one of his life. He told Westchester magazine, “People think I went there to learn to drape, but I actually studied 17th and 18th-century literature.” He is fluent in French.
In high school, Abboud worked first for Thom McAn dyeing women’s shoes and then at the Anderson-Little men’s store, where he sold suits. In college, he worked part-time at Louis Boston. Abboud spoke very highly of his position there, saying, “Louis Boston was a huge part of my career. I really landed in a world of very glamorous style, beautiful clothes, just the world of what international fashion was about. If this had never happened, then the rest of it wouldn’t have happened.” By age 23, he became a buyer at Louis Boston and during a 12-year career there, Abboud served as buyer, merchandiser, and eventually coordinator of promotion and advertising.
Abboud married Lynn Weinstein on June 6, 1976, and they have two daughters and reside in Bedford, New York. The daughters are both graduates of Boston Collège, reflecting Abboud’s Maronite Catholic background. Abboud’s mother and sister both succumbed to breast cancer, nudging him to become a breast cancer activist who designed a one-of-a-kind General Motors Corporation Sierra vehicle to fundraise for a Concept: Cure charity event and has participated in many other charity events for breast cancer research. He was honored as one of five “Men for the Cure” by GQ magazine and General Motors’ Concept: Cure during a breast cancer fund-raiser. That initiative raised $2.6 million for breast cancer organizations.
Abboud Is Back After Personal Name Trademark Controversy
In 1981, Abboud joined Ralph Lauren, later becoming associate director of menswear design. In 1987, he started his own label and in 1988, he created the label, JA Apparel—a joint venture between him and GFT (Gruppo Finanziario Tessile) USA. In 1991, Abboud was the first designer to win The Council of Fashion Designers of America award as Best Menswear Designer two years in a row.
Some of Abboud’s famous friends are also his customers, including American trumpeter and composer Wynton Marsalis, author and former TV news anchor Tom Brokaw, and former Boston Red Sox shortstop Nomar Garciaparra. He sold his trademarks and name to JA Apparel for $65 million in 2000. The company was acquired by private equity firm J.W. Childs Associates for $73 million in 2004, and Abboud left JA Apparel in 2005.
Abboud launched a new line called Jaz in 2007. He also created the Black Brown 1826 line for the Lord & Taylor department store in 2008. The year 2008 also marked the opening of his first stores in China. In 2010, Abboud became the chief creative officer of HMX, owner of the Hart Schaffner Marx and Hickey Freeman brands. HMX made an offer to buy JA Apparel for $90 million in 2011. In December 2012, he became Chief Creative Director of Men’s Wearhouse. While employing Abboud as its creative director, Men’s Wearhouse Inc. (now Tailored Brands Inc.) reacquired the Abboud and JOE by Joseph Abboud trademark in 2013.
Thus began the incredibly messy legal case that went on for some time. It concerned his selling his firm and, per Westchester Magazine, “the erroneous assumption that Abboud had sold his name as well as the trademarks.” According to him, “In 2000, I sold the trademarks but I didn’t sell my name…The second company claimed I did. That’s a very big distinction.” Following a two-year lawsuit, in 2009, Abboud finally reclaimed his name. He claimed that not only had his name been legally restored to him, but he announced that he was about to be reunited with the brand he started.
After getting back the legal right to his brand in 2013, Abboud set up e-commerce, opened a Madison Avenue flagship store and produced full-scale fashion shows. He writes about these complicated legal trademark issues in his book, Threads: My Life Behind the Seams in the High-Stakes World of Fashion. Therein he describes the fashion industry from designing and selling clothes to naming colors.
He frequently appeared on shock jock Don Imus’s radio show and was a regular caller to the New York City radio station, WFAN, to discuss his beloved Boston Red Sox, the New York Yankees’ rival. In 2002, he was the first fashion designer ever to throw out the opening pitch at Boston’s Fenway Park for a Red Sox game. Abboud goes back to Boston to see his beloved team play 15 or 20 times a year; he even recently bought a townhouse in his native city that’s a mere 12 minutes from Fenway Park.
Abboud is a very proud American legend. He is equally proud of his Lebanese roots, though he does not tout his ethnic or religious background so much as practices the principles learned by growing up in a Lebanese family with a devotion to the Maronite Catholic Church.
Sources:
–“List of Arab Americans, Joseph Abboud,” Wikipedia, 2023
–“Joseph Abboud Is Back: Personal Name Trademark Controversy Continues,” National Law Review, 8/31/2009, reprinted 7/13/2023
–“Behind the Seams with Joseph Abboud,” Westchester Magazine, 12/15/2013
John Mason, PhD., who focuses on Arab culture, society, and history, is the author of LEFT-HANDED IN AN ISLAMIC WORLD: An Anthropologist’s Journey into the Middle East, New Academia Publishing, 2017. He has taught at the University of Libya, Benghazi, Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York, and the American University in Cairo; John served with the United Nations in Tripoli, Libya, and consulted extensively on socioeconomic and political development for USAID and the World Bank in 65 countries.
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