|
As the whole industry watched in rapt attention
as Calvin Klein (who sold his company to Phillips–van Heusen
this year) stood visibly apart in the wings while the début
Costa-designed collection was sent down the runway at the Milk Studios,
one was reminded once again that change is the only constant but
orderly and transitional change is more welcomed above all else.
It was also quite disturbingly awkward: it was if we were viewing
a highway accident from our speeding cars. You are being encouraged
to move it along by the state police setting out flares, but you
slow down in shameless fascination just the same. One almost wished
that he too, like Mr Blass, had simply taken the money and run for
his nearest vacation home. (And now, apparently, he has. As we close
out 2003, it was reported on several fronts that Mr Klein has quietly
retired from his namesake company but will make strategic cameo
appearance from time to time as per his contarct with Phillips–van
Heusen.)
Soon after firing Mr Nilsson, the investor group
at Bill Blass hired Michael Vollbracht, a fashion designer, painter,
author, illustrator and the curator of the highly-acclaimed Bill
Blass retrospective at the University of Illinois, to take over
the job of Creative Director of the firm; and it was a fine choice
indeed. It would appear that everyone concerned has made the decision
that the devil you know is better than the devil you have to get
to know. The whole presentation was geared towards evoking, in all
our minds, the true essence of what a Bill Blass collection represented:
elegance, sophistication, glamour, a celebration of the woman wearing
the clothes.
Mr Vollbracht did his research by visiting the
archives at Blass, Inc. as a means of finding the right balance
between old-world, classic Bill and new-world Michael. He recruited
the talents of legendary models Dianne De Witt, Karen Bjornson and
the always exciting Pat Cleveland to walk the runway, combining
their talents with the best of the new generation of supermodels,
Karolina Karkova, Carmen Kass and Liya Kebede.
‘I’m using girls my own age,’
Mr Vollbracht (who was born in 1947 in Quincy, Ill.) told the Associate
Press’s Francine Parnes. ‘[They are] women who know how
to show clothes and not just teenagers who thump down the runway.
These ladies know how to take a jacket off. It’s great to show
these women who are so beautiful and in their 50s. If we could reach
a 50-year-old woman, I have done my job.’ CONTINUED
|
The whole presentation was geared towards evoking, in all
our minds, the true essence of what a Bill Blass collection represented:
elegance, sophistication, glamour, a celebration of the woman wearing
the clothes
     
|
@