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Future Fashion
Michael Vollbracht: Artist, Designer and Visionary
By Carol Cortright
Published: February / March 2008

“She’s wearing my jacket,” says New York fashion designer Michael Vollbracht, delighted when I hand him a copy of November’s BABM and he spots a smiling Sheila Johnson on the cover. The billionaire businesswoman, philanthropist and new owner of the Innisbrook Resort and Golf Club, is a big fan of the Bill Blass look.

From 2003 to 2007, Vollbracht served as creative director of Bill Blass Ltd. He resigned in June to pursue other projects. The fashion industry has become a fickle, celebrity-driven mistress, changing not necessarily for the better, as Vollbracht discovered during his second major stint in that glittering environment. Overall, it’s been a life of highs and lows, shooting through the stratosphere as a design star one decade, and then picking up the pieces and reinventing himself as an artist and illustrator the next. This time around he’s plotting a new course within the fashion industry designing, as always, for real women who want to look beautiful, but spreading his reach beyond couture.

Vollbracht’s Safety Harbor retreat is “the complete antithesis” of his frenetic life in New York City. Since buying the modest block home in 1989, the place has given him balance, allowing him to regroup and rebuild a successful career path more than once. During his recent winter holiday down south, he spent plenty of time with a palette knife in hand, creating two dozen new oil paintings for a major Palm Beach gallery show. Local friends and acquaintances dropped by to see how he was doing, to update him on the plans for their daughter’s weekend wedding, or to make sure he stopped painting long enough to eat.

“I’m a fashion designer first, an artist second,” he says—although occasionally those roles have flip-flopped. There have been periods when his art and illustration paid the bills.

For Vollbracht, the main attractions of this arboreal little town are the tranquility, the balmy weather and the ease of travel between his two homes. He can start the day outfitting Oprah or Janet Jackson and two and a half hours later he’s worlds away, listening to the bamboo rustle in the creek-side jungle at the end of an inconspicuous neighborhood road. Vollbracht moved to this corner of the Sunshine State after the crash of his eponymous fashion house in the mid-1980s. For a few years, he worked and lived at the Safety Harbor Spa, giving it a much-needed facelift. Then he supported himself by selling his paintings and kept busy lending his assistance to various charitable events.

“I almost went into automobile design, but I have no math skills,” Vollbracht said, acknowledging that some form of creating was on his mind in his younger days. “My mother had a great fashion sense, so I was always around that.” While growing up in the Midwest, Vollbracht recalled two teachers who encouraged his artistic nature. One of them “saw and nurtured my talent and pushed me toward Parsons,” explaining his arrival at the famed New York school of design in the mid-1960s. A gifted student, he was awarded scholarships to attend the prestigious institution after his first successful year there.

By the time he graduated in 1969, Vollbracht had received the school’s coveted Norman Norell Award, named after one of his early idols. He was crestfallen to learn that Norell would not be handing out the award in person because the famous designer was in Milan at the time. Standing in for Norell was another top American designer, Bill Blass. In a stroke of pure serendipity, Vollbracht had just met a fashion industry leader who would become his friend, mentor and supporter for the next three decades.

After working for some of the biggest names in American fashion after graduation—Geoffrey Beene, Donald Brooks, and even Norman Norell—he started up his own label by the end of the 1970s. He was recognized with the 1980 Coty American Fashion Critics Award, known as the “Oscar” of the fashion world from 1943 until it was discontinued in 1985.

Flying high for seven years, Vollbracht designed not only couture for the moneyed set, but also mass-marketed retail products while socializing with some very big names, including Elizabeth Taylor and the late Joan Crawford.

The celebrity ride was about to take a serious dip, however, which taught him a very important business lesson in the process. When considering potential financial backers, Vollbracht can’t stress this enough: check them out. “Have a dossier on anyone you are going to work with.” Who knew an investment partnership with the “king of late night TV,” Johnny Carson, and his third wife Joanna would turn out so badly? Vollbracht’s friend Joan Rivers knew. “She cautioned me about going into business with them. Johnny bought the business for Joanna to keep her as far away from him as possible,” he realized too late. The Carsons’ bitter divorce led to the end of financial support for Michael Vollbracht Inc., and the company folded in 1985.

Enter a new life in Florida that lasted for about fifteen years, until Bill Blass himself came calling with a project: “He asked me to move back up north and work on his retrospective.” Blass died in 2002 as the project neared completion. Soon after, the house of Blass tapped Vollbracht to take over his mentor’s company, after two other designers failed to pass muster with the iconic brand. Soon Vollbracht was back on top of the fashion world…for a while.

There’s no such thing as a “typical day” in the fashion industry.

Vollbracht elaborates, “While there’s likely to be a lot of down time between collections, I might go to Paris to look at fabrics or travel to promote the line. But two weeks before the collection launches is chaotic.” Then there are those last-minute variables to deal with. “I might get a call that Mrs. Bush is coming in on Tuesday or that Sheila Johnson needs something—we have to be prepared to take care of them right away. This is couture—we specially make these clothes” for clients who are busy running the world, or at least their own little corners of it.

Although he considers himself an artist and “not a businessman,” Vollbracht points out that smart fashion designers talk to their sales department. “The sales department will say, ‘Do another version of that—it sold really well,’” he explains. “I’ve never been endorsed by the New York fashion press—they’ve disliked me intensely, but some of my worst-reviewed (lines) have been my biggest sellers. I’m very consumer-driven—those women don’t read those reviews.”

Vollbracht received sage advice from his silver screen pals about how to deal with the media—and who should know better than Liz and Joan? They would tell him “don’t trust the press.” “I always liked the out-of-town newspaper writers,” he clarifies, whereas the big fashion magazines “have this disdain—they don’t care about the consumer. They could care less (about women who aren’t a size 2). It’s all about youth,” he laments. “I learned a lot,” Vollbracht says of the five years he was back on the fashion scene at the helm of Blass. “The New York press girls are doing a disservice—they don’t think about the American woman.”

Fashion changed in the early 1990s, Vollbracht says. Some design houses like Prada “deconstructed fashion—and it’s easier to deconstruct than to construct,” he points out, adding, “I feel for a lot of these kids coming out of Parsons today. It’s almost impossible to get your own line going.”

For one thing, back then there were more specialty stores and a limited number of designers. Now, the number of boutiques has dwindled while the number of designers has exploded. Also, design students have to compete with the likes of Jennifer Lopez and Gwen Stefani, celebrity names on “designer” items—how can young designers go up against someone with name recognition like that?

“Stylists today are more important than they should be,” Vollbracht says. “Celebrity has become so insidious. Fashion is a tough, tough business. It’s uncaring and insincere. But it’s what I grew up in. After a 15-year hiatus, I was not aware how much it had changed.” In retrospect he says, “My work is more rewarding by having the falls—I’ve never been scared of the falls. I had a rough beginning, an abusive childhood. Our circumstances were rather dire. I know how to take the knocks.”

On the business end of fashion and art, he says, “I don’t like to talk about money. It makes me nervous. I’m a terrible negotiator, I give things away.” That’s why he has a business partner to handle those kinds of details. “I’ve always, always had someone to deal with the business end. I’m not an easy person to work with but talent comes with that territory.”

His business partner also acts as his agent, although marketing his many talents are hardly necessary. He doesn’t have to go looking for projects—“Things find me,” he says. “I like projects,” he says, describing his work habits. “There are deadlines in the fashion industry—I like doing different things. When a collection is done, I start working on a new one.”

He also recognizes that he’s “very blessed in my life and went through many tragedies and I do like to give back, whether it’s money, or a painting or a public speaking engagement.”

Locally, Vollbracht supports programs at Gulf Coast Jewish Family Services. Speaking out against child abuse and AIDS-related causes are also important to him, having experienced the emotional scars of both himself. “It has been what it has been,” he muses, “I’ve remained true to myself. This is what I am. I don’t mind when people don’t like my work—I want them to—but if not, that’s alright. I’ve survived in spite of myself. I’m the last one to give advice, but know that you can’t please everybody. Some people don’t like my work but I count my blessings for the people that do.”

The fashion world hasn’t seen the last of Michael Vollbracht, contrary to what they might have thought when he exited Bill Blass last summer. “I’m going to keep my couture ladies, but also create medium-range lines for consumers. I care about the consumers,” he emphasizes. “I’m going to stay in fashion on my own terms.”

“I’m on to my third or fourth act,” he says in response to the roller coaster ride of his career. “Baby Boomers redefined youth—everything changed with us…We’re not going quietly into old age.”

As our late-November conversation came to an end, we talked about what the new year would bring for the designer: an exhibit at Palm Beach’s renowned Wally Findlay Gallery and then back to New York to assemble staff for the latest incarnation of Michael Vollbracht, Inc.

“I’ve not had an easy life but it’s been absolutely wonderful. It’s been a great ride so far,” he said, wrapping up our visit. And with that, he disappeared back into the heady vapors of his fresh oil paintings to work on the next art show.

Quotes by Michael Vollbracht …

“I never thought that I wouldn’t be a success.”

“You cannot make it in anything without an ego. Know your strengths and weaknesses, your talent and limitations.”

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