1970 headquarters new york ny key people bill blass founder and chris benz creative director website bill blass website bill blass group replaces what was formerly bill blass limited a fashion house founded by american designer bill blass . chris benz is the creative director of the group . contents 1 bill blass limited 2 bill blass group 3 references 4 external links bill blass limited edit designer bill blass began designing for anna miller in 1959 and his name began appearing on the label starting in 1960 after it merged with maurice rentner . 1 he renamed the company bill blass limited . 2 after purchasing it in 1970 3 after making a name for himself with rentner . 4 this made him the first american designer to print his own name on his designs . 5 he also created the blassport medium priced fashion line in 1972 . 6 bill blass limited rose to prominence over the 1970s being worn by individuals such as jacqueline kennedy to gloria vanderbilt . 7 the line expanded to include swimwear furs luggage perfume and chocolate and miles socha wrote of the company in 1998 that the company had allowed 42 licenses in a wide variety of products from furniture and lamps to handbags and fragrances generating about 800 million in annual retail sales . 8 by this time blass considered retirement and his last line as head of the company came with the spring 2000 collection at new york city fashion week in september 1999 . 9 he sold the company for 50 million in 2000 . 5 from 2003 to 2007 bill blass limited s head designer was michaele vollbracht . he resigned as head designer in early 2007 10 at about the same time as the company was acquired by nexcen brands in february 2007 through a 54.6 million cash and stock acquisition of the company . 11 according to ellin saltzman in the new york times he took american sportswear to its highest level giving it a clean modern impeccable style he probably more than any designer knew his customer and understood her . 12 keystones of the brand identity include exuberant use of color embellishment and the embodiment of the casual american spirit . bill blass group edit following the acquisition peter som began designing bill blass womenswear and michael bastian would design the menswear line . 13 in december 2008 peacock international holdings llc purchased bill blass limited now known as bill blass group llc . following the acquisition of the brand peacock stated that it had plans to revive the bill blass couture line which had been discontinued a few months prior to the purchase . 14 the new head of the label would be jeffrey monteiro who worked as head designer until 2012 . between the death of blass and this point six different designers had been hired and dismissed ; the 2012 collections were cancelled upon monteiro s firing . 15 16 bill blass group llc named merchandising executive stuart m. goldblatt in september 2014 as its president and chief operating officer . goldblatt is committed to the reinvention and relaunch of the bill blass . 17 in november 2014 chris benz was appointed as creative director as a part of a new rebranding effort . 7 benz stated that i have forever admired and have deep respect for blass as an original american designer . 17 references edit barbara perso heinemann 2008 . fashioning an artful life one woman s life history in clothes . p. 118 . retrieved april 17 2015 . bill bass bio . fmd . retrieved 26 july 2013 . kenneth t. jackson ; lisa keller & nancy flood 2010 . the encyclopedia of new york city second edition . yale university press . retrieved april 17 2015 . christopher faircloth 2009 . cleveland s department stores . arcadia publishing . p. 67 . retrieved april 17 2015 . a b francesca sterlacci purvin & joanne arbuckle 2007 . historical dictionary of the fashion industry . scarecrow press . p. 23 . retrieved april 17 2015 . mary ellen snodgrass 2015 . world clothing and fashion an encyclopedia of history culture and social influence . routledge . p. 68 . retrieved april 15 2015 . a b lauren milligan october 20 2014 . chris benz to helm bill blass . vogue . retrieved april 17 2015 . miles socha september 24 1998 . blass is black in jeans . wwd . retrieved april 17 2015 . thomas j. brady september 18 1999 . bill blass shows spring line and says it is his last really . philadelphia inquirer . retrieved april 17 2015 . lennie bennett february 28 2009 . michael vollbracht s fashions are for women of a certain age size and income . tampa bay times . retrieved april 17 2015 . plunkett s apparel & textiles industry almanac 2008 . plunkett research . 2008 . p. 164 . retrieved april 17 2015 . nemy enid 13 jun 2002 bill blass whose clothes gave casual an elegant air dies at 79 the new york times pp . a1 imran amed july 27 2007 . bill blass the peter som and michael bastian tag team . business of fashion . retrieved april 17 2015 . cheryl tan december 29 2008 . bill blass s new owner plans to revive couture line . wall street journal . retrieved april 17 2015 . http www.nytimes.com 2009 12 17 fashion 17row.html r 0 http runway.blogs.nytimes.com 2012 08 06 bill blass fires designer again a b http billblass.com chris % 20benz creative % 20director announcement.pdf external links edit bill blass website retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title bill blass group & oldid 724237307 categories high fashion brandscompanies established in 1970american fashion designers navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version languages add links this page was last modified on 8 june 2016 at 00 12 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; 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