\"Fashion Designer\" Bill Blass Signed 8X10 B&W Photo For Sale

Up for sale "Fashion Designer" Bill Blass Hand Signed 8X10 B&W Photo. 

ES-9241E

 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 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.