Services were held Wednesday morning at St. Elizabeth’s Catholic University Parish in Lubbock, Texas, for longtime specialty retailer John B. Malouf, who died Sept. 4 after a brief bout with pulmonary fibrosis. He was 88.
Malouf worked in his namesake store at Kingsgate Center in Lubbock six days a week until he was recently hospitalized, noted company spokeswoman Diana LeMaster. He earned a Lifetime Achievement Award from MR Magazine in 2013.
“To me, it’s the same thing an artist would feel about paintings or a musician that composed beautiful music,” Malouf told WWD in 2010. “This is my hobby. I enjoy being creative and doing things that people don’t expect and discovering good products and ideas.”
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Among the labels Malouf’s stores currently carries are David Yurman, Ermenegildo Zegna, Kate Spade New York, Robert Talbott, Robert Graham and Tory Burch. The entrepreneur’s eldest son, Michael, is company president and will continue in that position.
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Born in the small West Texas town of O’Donnell in 1927, Malouf discovered his passion for style when his mother took him to Durham-Burdine men’s clothing store in Lubbock to buy dress shoes for his enrollment in nearby Texas Technological College, now Texas Tech University. He worked afternoons at the store as he studied year-round for a bachelor’s degree in business management.
Graduating in 1949 after a stint in the Army, Malouf quickly found a space in downtown Lubbock for his men’s store, Malouf’s. The 22-year-old managed every facet of the business, designed all store fixtures, and sought to carry the industry’s best lines, including Oxxford. After years of proving his reputation by acquiring compatible brands, Malouf was finally able to offer Oxxford in 1964.
Malouf opened a second Lubbock store in 1959 and another in 1973 in South Plains Mall, the city’s first upscale suburban center.
In 1981, he added women’s apparel. By 1989, Malouf had consolidated his Lubbock stores into the current location. He also operated a unit in Burlingame, Calif., from 1991 to 2009, when he opened a boutique managed by Michael Malouf in the affluent Southlake suburb of Dallas.
A supporter of music, health and educational institutions, Malouf received the Outstanding Philanthropist Award from the Lubbock Association of Fundraising Professionals in 2005.
Malouf was preceded in death by his wife, Eleanor E. Emmett, with whom he had eight children.
He is survived by a brother, Buddy Malouf, and his wife Jo. He is also survived by children Michael J. Malouf, Matt E. Malouf, Scott A. Malouf and his wife Karen, Sam J. Malouf and his wife Gloria, Jennie Malouf Gilchrist and her husband Tom, Linda Malouf Walter and her husband Paul, Leslie A. Malouf, and Beverly Malouf Debolski and her husband Tom, and 10 grandchildren.
Donations may be made in his memory to the Eleanor E. Malouf Scholarship Fund at in the Art Education Department at Texas Tech University or to Lubbock nonprofit groups the Covenant Foundation and Catholic Charities.