It is more than a specific design, or the look of the moment: there is something unmistakable about a Bill Blass creation, much as there is something unmistakable about the women who wear them. What these women and their Blass clothes exude is a quality not frequently associated with fashion: authority.
For women like Barbara Walters, Grace Bumbry, and Claudette Colbert, it is the aura of their individual success in their professions. For others like Nancy Reagan, Pat Buckley, and Nancy Kissinger, it comes from being married to powerful men. For Doris Duke, Nan Kempner, and Mrs. Vincent Astor, it is part of the mystique of enormous inherited wealth and social position. For these and thousands of other women, known internationally or only in their own close circles, it comes of having and knowing the best in everything.
But the typical Blass creation is invested with an authority of its own, long before it ever appears on the back of a client, and even before the Bill Blass label is sewn inside. That authority comes from the sureness of line, the quality of fabric and construction, the inimitable touch of the man who is perhaps America's premier purveyor of elegance.
This exceptional talent was nurtured far from any of the fashion capitals of the world in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Bill Blass played high school football, worked on the paper, dabbled in art. But there had been, for him, a fascination with sketching that he recalls from his very early childhood. Sketches that he made when he was five or so already show touches of a very sure hand, touches that are still part of his sketching style today.
For Blass, the sketch is where the ultimate design begins and is one of the most important elements throughout the entire construction of each collection. For Blass, sketching usually beings about four months before the completed collection is ready to be shown to buyer and the fashion press. Inspiration can come from the individual fabrics he wants to use, and the colors and ideas he wants to incorporate into the new line. The business day, filled as it is with all the details of running an enterprise that includes thirty-five licensees in widely differing fields, is monumentally hectic, so he sketches at home.
The sketch then goes to the sample room, where skilled craftspeople like cutters and drapers translate it into fabric. This is the critical time, when changes and corrections, all directed by Blass himself, turn the idea from sketch to living, dimensional, wearable garment.
That wearability is an essential ingredient. The most chic creation cannot look good if it makes its wearer uncomfortable. Part of the unmistakable authority that is constructed into each Blass design comes from the easy assurance its wearer feels. These cloths are not clothes for simply posing; they are designed and made for the active contemporary woman, who works, travels, and moves. The clothes look wonderful in magazine photographs, of course, but they truly come alive on the body. The Blass designs are generally understated and implicit in the line and flow of the fabric. The integrity of the fabric is always respected, and this comes through in the peerless, yet easy, feel of the garment. It is as obvious to the viewer as it is to the wearer, the epitome of truth-in-elegance: it feels as good as it looks.
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