The departure of Lars Nilsson was a shock last season, but new creative director Michael Vollbracht has restored the faith in the Bill Blass label, writes Phillip D. Johnson

PHOTOGRAPHED BY RICHARD SPIEGEL

It’s pretentious to think that designers can’t be replaced once they decided to bow out. They can be replaced but what also must change is the way in which we view the brand

ROM THAT STORMY, rainy day in 1999 when the late, great, iconoclastic designer Bill Blass took his final bow and retired to his house in Connecticut, people in the fashion world have been witnesses to the ongoing drama as his former chief finance officer (who bought the company the business for a reported $50 million) struggled to find the right balance between showing respect for the heritage left behind and moving the company forward into the an increasingly competitive marketplace. (Not that this is an exceptionally unusual situation in the business and financial world.)
   By the late 1990s, Blass’s empire had included 97 licensees, with an annual worldwide turnover exceeding $700 million; therefore, continued financial success was a major consideration. The first post-sale designer, Steven Slowik, was hand-picked by Mr Blass as his successor. However, he lasted for only two seasons and ultimately proved to be a disappointment. Who can forget his My Little Pony collection? It drove a stake through the hearts of the women who has long revered Bill Blass for his class, style and inherent American design sensibility. And they fled the house in droves.
   Swede Lars Nilsson was hired soon after and sent forth with one primary mandate: restore the prestige of the design house and bring all those ladies-who-lunch, as well as their young society, Junior League daughters, back into the fold.
   For a time, it seemed that he has done that—and so much more—but he, too, was fired last February not long after showing his fall 2003 collection at the Bryant Park tents. Apparently, he restored the lost prestige but didn’t do too much to help the financial bottom line. It was an unpleasant surprise that sent shockwaves throughout the industry.
   The New York Times’ fashion critic Cathy Horyn, one of my personal journalistic heroes, said it best in her review of the spring 2004 Calvin Klein collection as designed by his unexpected successor, Francisco Costa: ‘It’s pretentious to think that designers can’t be replaced once they decided to bow out.’ They can be replaced but what also must change is the way in which we view the brand.

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