Tahari, who has dressed Hillary Clinton and Joan Rivers, had a fraught childhood in Israel, where his parents settled after fleeing. He was born in a refugee camp and lived in a metal-sheet house with no electricity, running water or indoor bathroom. He started working at a boutique owned by an Israeli man who also manufactured clothing. One day, Tahari had an apparel epiphany: an elastic, one-size-fits-all, strapless top that a woman could wear outside at the pool or beach. “With the tube top, it was a natural thing,” Tahari says of his now ubiquitous invention. “Women in the ’70s, when the hippie movement started, they let it all hang out. They didn’t want to wear bra.”
