Alexander Kabbaz, a custom shirtmaker whose clients included Leonard Bernstein and Tom Wolfe as well as numerous business titans, world leaders, and celebrities, died in Amagansett on July 21 of a heart attack. He was 72.
Mr. Kabbaz was born on Jan. 28, 1950, in New York City, the son of Kathleen Colgan and Alexander Kabbaz Sr., and grandson of the noted surrealist artist Lucia Anavi Wilcox. He spent his childhood in the city, then moved to Merrick, where he attended Calhoun High School. His summers were spent in Amagansett.
After graduating he took some time off in Laguna Beach, Calif., “immersing himself in artistic pursuits” before returning to the East Coast to attend Stony Brook University, where he majored in engineering.
He began his professional career as a writer for Harper’s Magazine and in 1973 founded and published Discothekin, which his family said would become “the foremost magazine chronicling the discotheque entertainment field,” Mr. Kabbaz not only chronicled New York’s storied 1970s disco scene, he was a fixture of it, as a D.J. for such spots as the legendary Studio 54. During this time he was a technical adviser to Billboard magazine and the disco film “Saturday Night Fever.”
“In 1977, foreseeing the decline of the disco era, Alex shifted his focus to bespoke clothing,” the family wrote. “He apprenticed with the top shirt-making artisans of the day and found them to be out of step with the times — staid, and lacking in innovation. Harnessing his years of personal design experience, Alex reinvented the modern custom shirt, tinkering until he had engineered the perfect garment.”
He opened his first atelier in Manhattan at 35th Street and Second Avenue, later moving to 57th and Fifth, before finally settling, in 1989, on Madison Avenue at 72nd Street. “By this time, Alex had gained a reputation as the world’s premier custom shirtmaker, a designation he maintained until his passing,” his family wrote. His talents as a custom clothier were featured in such publications as Departures, Robb Report, Business Insider, and Slate magazine, and in several television documentaries. He also designed shirts, and supplied fashions for blockbuster films including “Wall Street,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine,” and “Men in Black.”
Mr. Kabbaz was president of the Madison Avenue Merchants Association for years before founding the Madison Avenue Business Improvement District in 1996. His civic efforts won him a proclamation from the New York City Council. He was also a recipient that year of the East Manhattan Chamber of Commerce’s Outstanding Business Service award.
Mr. Kabbaz and Joelle Kelly were married on June 27, 1996. The two were partners in life and in business. In 1999, Mr. Kabbaz and his family moved from New York to their family compound in Amagansett, a property that had been a “nexus of the mid-20th-century Hamptons artists colony,” according to relatives. His grandmother Lucia Wilcox is said to have counted such artists as Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dali, Willem de Kooning, Max Ernst, and Peggy Guggenheim among her circle of friends.
“Seeking to continue Lucia’s artistic legacy, Alex and his wife, Joelle, founded Artists’ Woods . . . in 2000,” the family wrote. An art gallery, sculpture garden, and art school, it hosted artists for summer teaching residencies in disciplines as varied as ceramics, glass-beading, and welding. Their students ranged in age from early childhood to adults.
Upon learning that East Hampton Town was in search of a property for a new senior citizens center, Mr. Kabbaz offered a piece of land off Abraham’s Path for the purpose. “Although the parcel was highly desirable for private development, Alex felt it was important to give back to the community,” the family wrote. Plans are now in the works to build the new center there.
Mr. Kabbaz was a man of many interests. He played trombone and guitar and was an artist and craftsman working in ceramics, woodworking, and welding. He was also an enthusiastic skier, hiker, and tennis player; and “a talented cook, making traditional Lebanese recipes passed down from his grandmother Lucia, who was herself the subject of a culinary review by Craig Claiborne of The New York Times.” He particularly enjoyed serving as scoutmaster for Cub Scout packs in New York City and Amagansett, where he was able to share his interests and love of the outdoors with younger generations.
His wife survives, as does a sister, Nancie Gray of Milford, Conn., and four sons: Damien Kabbaz and Conrad Kabbaz of New York and Daniel Kabbaz and Tucker Kabbaz of Amagansett, He also leaves a grandson, Odin Kabbaz of New York.
