From the New York Times of December 25: “Much as Chanel and Dior and YSL carried on as luxury concerns well after the deaths of their namesakes, no American label seemed better poised to persevere in the absence of its founder than Bill Blass did. Blass changed things for designers on Seventh Avenue, who used to toil in the relative obscurity of its backrooms. By the sheer force of his talent and wit, he brought glamour to the job, and, by the 1990s, was so famous that his company had more than 40 licenses with annual sales of $500 million of Bill Blass products. There is no shortage of explanations for the label’s demise. There was an aging clientele, a management that seemed to take a freewheeling approach to the brand and its failure to find a successor who could match the Blass persona. (Blass died in 2002) Ultimately, NexCen, the new owner, blamed the economic climate. Without warning, NexCen announced in May (2008) that there was “substantial doubt” that it would remain in business. At Blass, fabric bills went unpaid. For the Bill Blass collection to fail in such an ugly way strikes many of those involved in the company as an especially cruel fate for a designer who made the profession seem so dazzling.” All this goes to show that bad management can drive a good business – even a great country – into the ground. The woman at left may be a former Bill Blass model, who knows? She may be one of the casualties of the failed business.
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