World renowned fashion designer, Bill Blass, a Fort Wayne native, is being honored locally with a 100-day celebration of his 100th birthday.
The 100 days of Blass-themed events and exhibits, which began on June 6, take place at various locations around Fort Wayne, highlighting everything from his time growing up on the city’s South side, to his work in the Ghost Army during World War II, and his fashion designs that graced celebrities and Presidents’ wives.
WBOI’s Julia Meek discusses the evolution and scope of the event as well as the remarkable Bill Blass legacy with its founder, Kathy Carrier.
For a complete listing of events and activities, visit the Bill Blass Blast Facebook page.
Interview transcript below:
Julia Meek: Kathy Carrier, welcome.
Kathy Carrier: Thank you so much for having me here.
Julia Meek: Now this is, in your own words, one Blass-tastic summer. Would you rem ind our listeners what the beloved Fort Wayne native Bill Blass did for the fashion world starting right here in Fort Wayne?
Kathy Carrier: He designed high-end clothing for celebrities and presidents wives and everyday lines of women wear-- very well regarded worldwide.
Julia Meek: How did you first get caught up in the whole Blass craze?
Kathy Carrier: I have a book of his work that was put out by Indiana University and I realized as I talked to people, few people knew Bill Blass here in Fort Wayne.
Julia Meek: You grew up on the south side of Fort Wayne, you are a Fort Wayne native. Did you have any inkling of his charisma, his magnetism, everything else that made him great, before you got to discover all that he was into?
Kathy Carrier: I remember growing up, my mother was a seamstress. She would sew Bill Blass clothes using Vogue and McCall's patterns; both my parents admired his work.
Julia Meek: And you have become his ambassador.
Kathy Carrier: He didn't marry. He didn't have kids. So we are carrying forward his story.
Julia Meek: Now Blass' design savvy did rock the world. What else have you found with all these studies made him such a darling?
Kathy Carrier: We've heard so many stories from people that knew him about his grace and his...he was a prolific sketcher, he was an amazing friend and a generous man.
Julia Meek: He had very humble roots and many will say he carried those with him his whole world.
Kathy Carrier: He did. He grew up during the depression in a single parent home and those Midwestern roots carried through his whole career with his design work. Yes.
Julia Meek: Okay, let's fast forward to your 100th birthday blast. This literally dovetails with Southside High School's 100th anniversary. That is Bill's alma mater. Once you decided on that big 100 day number, how did you figure out how to fill it and how much of it is Southside High School driven?
Kathy Carrier: We started with his high school and the History Center and it has exploded. We are at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art with a fashion exhibit. And the Southside High School teachers got on board and the kids, the students with a walk in our shoes. Between the art teacher and the gym teacher and the creative writing instructor, the history teacher, they all had program elements with the kids and are going to do it again this fall to get the high schoolers involved in the life of Bill Blass and to tell their stories.
Julia Meek: It's wonderful and throughout the community, where else are you doing things?
Kathy Carrier: So we were just at the Philharmonic Pops with a Ghost Army exhibit on July 3. We are also at the Veterans National Memorial Shrine and Museum on O'Day Road with the inflatable tank that's a replica of World War II.
Julia Meek: Now regarding the Blass mystique that goes beyond fashion, you're certainly hitting on it here. Would you explain a bit about the Ghost Army and his involvement?
Kathy Carrier: Few people know about Bill's involvement in the Ghost Army. It was a battalion of 1100 people, creatives, Bill was one of them. He was in 21 different World War II events. The Ghost Army just received the Congressional Gold Medal. Bill was one of the most renowned Ghost Army members, a celebrated war hero in World War Two.
Julia Meek: And your launch day was his birthday.
Kathy Carrier: Yes.
Julia Meek: June 22. So what are some of your most recent highlights and what do we have to look forward to now?
Kathy Carrier: There is a map that the Visitor Center put together with 12 different spots in town you can go to with Bill Blass, memorabilia and exhibits. We're bringing both fashion and war speakers to town to speak to Bill's history. And we are also archiving his life at the Allen County Public Library--rich stories of his life from his friends and family.
Julia Meek: What kind of response are you getting from the public as they do learn that this is a blast- tastic summer we're having? What kind of memories are you getting?
Kathy Carrier: We have people calling us who knew Bill and we have, every week, interviews scheduled so that we can build our archive of their stories because they knew him.
Julia Meek: What kind of a reach are you seeing and what kind of stories are you hearing?
Kathy Carrier: We're hearing from his butler, his niece and nephew, his personal assistant, people that wrote for Harper's Bazaar and Women's Wear Daily people that were on the Council of Fashion Designers of America, people that studied under him and were tutored and mentored by him and all of those stories are being captured and retained as part of his Bill Blass legacy.
Julia Meek: Did you have any idea when you started this whole quest, this whole birthday party itinerary, that you're going to get that kind of response?
Kathy Carrier: We had absolutely no idea. We went to New York in April and saw the 700 boxes of articles and 1500 dresses that he had created and began to meet the people in the world that knew him. We had no idea that we were getting into this. It's so exciting! And we have an obligation to record it all and archive it all as a memory of this amazing Fort Wayne native.
Julia Meek: In a nutshell, what are you getting about the guy, Bill Blass?
Kathy Carrier: He reminds me a lot of my dad. He was a prolific entrepreneur, and he figured out how to make money doing that. But he was also a generous friend. We're hearing stories about money that he gave people to start businesses. We're hearing stories about how he taught people to sketch and draw and design and produce fashion. We hear stories how he uplifted his units in World War II, people that he fought next to. (He didn't really fight. He was in the Ghost Army, it was all subterfuge.) But he was the kind of man who had a simple upbringing and never lost those genuine roots.
Julia Meek: That makes him all the more special and all the more special of a local hero.
Kathy Carrier: Yes, absolutely.
Julia Meek: Now, I do wonder what kind of a ratio are you seeing among your celebration goers, between generations of people interested? And then between the diehard blast fans versus brand new and excited people that didn't know anything about him?
Kathy Carrier: Yeah, our goal is to reach everyone. So the exhibits that we have at the three museums bring in a certain group of people interested in Blass. We have to-go kits for the kids at all the library branches, also at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art, we have children's exercises. In August, we'll be reaching out through radio to teens and to younger people so that they know who Bill Blass was. So all of the work that we're doing, all the people we're bringing to town, is really oriented towards all the different people who live here so that we all remember him.
Julia Meek: Do you feel that you can share all of this then on a bigger platform to a bigger market? That would be the world and especially with social media, letting you put it right out there. How far do you think it could go?
Kathy Carrier: We have a Facebook page that gets a crazy number of hits. His meatloaf recipe reached 8500 People in just a few, a few hours. But just this week, we decided not only to build the archive at the library, but to bring a website up with all of the 1000s of images we have of his life and his work, because we're getting calls from people who want to see the archive of his work. So our reach is local and is growing nationally and internationally, which is pretty exciting for us to tell the story and summarize the story of his life to the world.
Julia Meek: Especially a 100-year story that you have to tell.
Kathy Carrier: We have an archive in New York that we've been given access to have all of his business success, all of his army success, all of his fashion success. It's all at our fingertips to share with the world. Yes.
Julia Meek: Beyond figuring out how to process all of this and what you're going to do with it, what does it feel like to have access to this information you didn't even know existed, say six months ago?
Kathy Carrier: When we walked into the archive, we thought maybe there was a filing cabinet of his work. And when we saw it was an entire floor of a New York building, filled with his carefully constructed archive that he created while he was alive, we were overwhelmed. We took a big gulp and we just have been creatively, enthusiastically and Blass-tastically sharing it through every organization in Fort Wayne that has an interest, even the Bob Thomas car dealership has to build Blass-designed cars in their showroom. '05 Scoop, it has ice cream that kids can go get, there's a Bill Blass Sunday. (laughs) We're up at Lake James where Bill's family had a cottage; we're at the Visitor's Center. We're at the rest stop on I-69 as you turn off to go into Lake James. We are at the home he grew up in. A wonderful woman who owns it allowed us to put a sign in his yard. We are at his high school, in the classrooms there. We are at the Philharmonic concerts, we'll be at the Cinema Center, we'll be at the library with speakers, at the Museum of Art, the History Center. We're everywhere.
Julia Meek: And so is his good word, then.
Kathy Carrier: And so is his story. Yes, yes. There isn't another Fort Wayne native that I'm aware of who achieved military heroism and entrepreneurial success--at the pinnacle, I mean, at the highest he won 43 Fashion Awards. I can't think of another Fort Wayne native who did that. And for that I think his story needs told and his life should be remembered here in his hometown.
Julia Meek: And expert that you are on the subject, not to mention all of the information you have unearthed, what's some of the craziest things you have learned about our hero, Bill Blass?
Kathy Carrier: Yeah! Bill's friend and butler sent us 273 items--donated it to our community. In there was a Bill Blass-designed game honoring his dog Barnaby. (chuckles) He was a huge dog fan. It's a pin the tail on Barnaby. It's on exhibit at the history center--crazy! Who would create a game about their dog? Bill Blass did that.
Julia Meek: A lot of the things that you're sharing and showing certainly encompassed the state. What kind of an impact did he have down Bloomington way and down Indianapolis way?
Kathy Carrier: Bill Blass loved Indiana University and Indiana University loved Bill Blass. In the Sage collection at the Eskenazi School of Art they have 200 Bill Blass designed fashion items. They brought their fashion to Fort Wayne. That's what's on exhibit at the Fort Wayne Museum of Art. The Indiana State Museum also has Bill Blass items that they've loaned us. And so we are in partnership with Indiana University and the Indiana State Museum to bring their collections that are Bill blast related to Fort Wayne to show our citizens.
Julia Meek: Now they've had Bill and his legacy and all of this on their own radar and in their own meaningful exhibits for this long while, were they surprised to know what was happening or being generated up here? Were they surprised being asked to share with us?
Kathy Carrier: They are thrilled. Indiana University is thrilled Kate Rowald who did the exhibit with Bill in 2001 just before he died, came to town, dressed the mannequins with the IU team. That's what's on display at the Museum of Art. They are thrilled that we are showcasing what they've done and preserved. The book that was put together in '01 about Bill's fashion is here in town for sale at the Paradigm Gallery at the Museum of Art. IU is thrilled to be a part of our celebration. And in fact two of their team members are coming to town to give speeches about his fashion because they know his fashion success far better than we do. And we've asked them to come to town to be guest lectures and they are Kelly Richardson and Kate Rowall, in August.
Julia Meek: And meanwhile the world loves a local hero made good and Bill Blass surely fits that category. As you mentioned, maybe like no one else in history, Kathy. From your heart and truly Fort Wayne perspective, what is it about the man and his legacy, and his body of work that keeps him in our heart and our fashion senses and every other part of us, all these years later?
Kathy Carrier: Bill Blass was born and raised in Fort Wayne on South Calhoun. He had a dream of fashion success. He never gave up on that dream. He served our country in the middle of achieving that dream in World War II. This is a story that inspires me. It inspired my parents. And as we've told children, my grandchildren about it, kids at Southside High School who are students, it inspires all of us. This is a man that was remarkable, a Fort Wayne native that we can all hold in our hearts and hold in our minds and hold in our heads. And as we go after our dreams and as we live our lives in Fort Wayne, we can look at Bill's story and know that our stories are also possible.
Julia Meek: Fort Wayne native Kathy Carrier is funder founder of Fort Wayne's Bill Blass 100th Birthday Celebration. Thanks so much for sharing this wonderful world of Blass with us. Enjoy the birthday party!
Kathy Carrier: Blass-tastic!
