Up for auction "Fashion Designer" Bill Blass Hand Signed 8X10 B&W Photo.
ES-7563E
William
Ralph Blass (June 22, 1922 – June 12, 2002) was an American fashion designer, born
in Fort Wayne, Indiana. He was the recipient of
many fashion awards, including seven Coty Awards and
the Fashion Institute of Technology's Lifetime
Achievement Award (1999). Blass was born in Fort Wayne,
Indiana, the son of Ralph Aldrich Blass, a traveling hardware salesman, and his wife,
Ethyl Keyser Blass. In his autobiography, Blass wrote that the
margins in his school books were filled with sketches of Hollywood-inspired
fashions instead of notes. At fifteen, he began sewing and selling evening gowns for
$25 each to a New York manufacturer. At seventeen he had saved enough money to
move to Manhattan and
study fashion. At eighteen, he was the first male to win Mademoiselle's Design for Living award. He
spent his salary of $30 a week on clothing, shoes and elegant meals. In
1943, Blass enlisted in the Army. Due to his intelligence and talent, he
was assigned to the 603rd Camouflage Battalion. Its mission was to
deceive the German Army into believing the Allies were positioned in fake
locations, for example by using dummy tanks.
He served in this unit at several major operations including the Battle of the
Bulge, and the Rhine River crossing. Blass
began his New York fashion career in 1945. He was a protégé of Baron de Gunzburg. In 1970, after two
decades of success in menswear and womenswear, he bought Maurice Rentner Ltd.,
which he had joined in 1959, and renamed it Bill Blass Limited. Over
the next 30 years he expanded his line to include swimwear, furs, luggage, perfume,
and chocolate.
In 1967, he was the first American couture fashion designer to start a men’s
wear line. That part of his business grew to offer everything from ties, socks
and belts to suits and evening clothes. It was made by 18 licensees. Like
many designers, his women’s couture collections lost money but served to
promote other parts of his business. By the mid-1990s, his ready to wear
business grossed about $9 million annually and his 97 licensing agreements had
retail sales of more than $700 million a year. His clients,
many of whom were also his friends, included Happy Rockefeller, Brooke Astor, Nancy Kissinger, Jessye Norman, Gloria Vanderbilt and Patricia Buckley.
Beginning in 1975, and continuing until 1992, Blass lent his talents to
the Ford Motor Company for an edition of
their Continental Mark series of automobiles. In
1976, he shared model configurations with Emilio Pucci, Hubert de Givenchy, and Cartier.
Each year, as goes true fashion, the interior and exterior color combinations
would be updated. One of the most popular was the 1979 edition honoring a
nautical theme, as did the Blass logo of the time. Small anchors were
incorporated into the exterior accent striping and interior accents within the
Blass "back-to-back B" design theme. The 1979 through 1983 Mark
series Blass models were available with a "carriage roof" giving a
convertible top look to the cars. After 1983, the Bill Blass edition became a
color option with rear quarter window model designations and a few features
that were options on the standard model. Over the years, Blass won three Coty American Fashion Critics Awards.
He won the 1968 Coty for men’s wear. The Council of Fashion Designers of
American awarded Blass their Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987
and was the group’s first winner of their Humanitarian Leadership Award in
1996. He was also named to the International Best Dressed List Hall
of Fame List.