Pioneer women’s clothier Soss dies

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 | 9:46 a.m.

Before the Fashion Show mall, Las Vegas had Fanny's. Its stores on Fremont Street and on the Strip were among the first women's clothing stores in town to purchase top designer clothes from New York and to display their fashions on mannequins.

Maury Soss, who with his mother, Fanny Soss, operated the stores from 1931 to 1979, died Thursday at a local care center. He was 89.

Services for Soss, a Las Vegas resident of 70 years and an arts devotee who co-founded the Nevada Dance Theatre, the city's first ballet company, will be 1 p.m. Sunday at Palm Mortuary, 7600 S. Eastern Ave. Palm Mortuary, 800 S. Boulder Highway, Henderson, is handling the arrangements.

Fanny's dressed everyone from the prostitutes of downtown's infamous Block 16 to the cream of Las Vegas society to regular out-of-towners, who considered no visit to Las Vegas complete without a shopping spree at its Fremont Street or Strip locations.

"Maury had a great passion for the arts and was very loyal to his friends," said Nancy Houssels, a longtime friend and fellow arts supporter. "Long after Fanny's closed, he made trips to New York to bring back the latest fashions so he could continue to dress his very special customers."

Houssels said in addition to co-founding the ballet in the early 1970s and financially supporting it through the years, Soss also provided elaborate costuming for several performances.

In August 1947 Fanny's made local history by becoming the first store to open in the Flamingo Promenade, the first retail establishment on Las Vegas Boulevard.

Born April 30, 1913, in Spokane, Wash., Soss moved with his mother, an astute businesswoman and divorcee, to Las Vegas in 1931. At age 18 he helped her open the first Fanny's at 513 S. Fifth St., now Las Vegas Boulevard, at Bonneville Avenue.

That fall the Sosses moved Fanny's to 113 S. 3rd St., just off Fremont Street. In 1932 Fanny's moved again to 211 Fremont St., where it flourished for 34 years.

During the shop's early days, a wide range of customers frequented Fanny's.

"It was not uncommon for girls from the red light district to come in with several three-dollar checks signed by prominent local men," Soss, the grandson of a British designer and retailer, told the Sun in 1979.

Soss graduated from University of California ,Los Angeles, worked six years for the Los Angeles County Civil Service Commission and served in the Army Air Corps during World War II before returning to Las Vegas and the stores.

A third Fanny's opened in the early 1950s in the Last Frontier Village, where the New Frontier now stands. A fourth Fanny's opened in 1958 on Las Vegas Boulevard, south of the old Desert Inn.

Shortly after that store opened, the Flamingo and Last Frontier shops were closed.

In 1966 the Fremont Street Fanny's was demolished to make way for the Four Queens, and the Strip store was closed in January 1979.

Soss was a member of the Nevada Council of the Arts.

He is survived by a son, David Soss of Salt Lake City, and two grandchildren. Fanny Soss died in the early 1990s at age 106.