The new owners of Bill Blass are set to name a head designer early this week, three months after the legendary couturier stepped down and sold his company.
The owners have narrowed the list to three names — but industry reports put a former Ferragamo ready-to-wear designer, Steven Slowik, at the top of the list.
“The process is still going on, and it will continue throughout the week,” said Haresh Harani, chairman of Bill Blass’ largest licensee, The Resource Club — and now an owner of the legendary American fashion house.
“We’ve narrowed it down to three people. We should be announcing it any day.”
Longtime Blass CFO Michael Groveman, who bought the company with Harani last November with funds raised by issuing Bill Blass bonds, did not return calls for comment.
Other names thrown around as possible successors to the 77-year-old icon are Randolph Duke — who did a brief stint at Halston — Eric Gaskins, James Purcell and Alber Elbaz, who is currently in the middle of completing a three-year contract at Yves Saint Laurent.
But fashion insiders say the front-runner is definitely the Paris-based Slowik, who now designs a signature collection from the City of Light.
“Slowik would be the best marriage material for Bill Blass,” said Ann Caruso, merchandise manager of the Better Division at the Doneger Group, a retail-consulting firm in New York.
“Ferragamo is as close to synonymous — in Europe — with Bill Blass as you can get,” Caruso added.
The Detroit, Mich.-based Slowik worked with Ferragamo from 1988 to 1997, most recently as a women’s ready-to-wear designer in Paris.
“His style is in keeping with the traditional ladies-who-lunch conservatism — but it’s modern and in keeping with who she is today,” Caruso said.
Bill Blass stepped down in November after nearly 60 years in the fashion industry, fueling speculation that the house would go down with him.
But Groveman and Harani felt there was still a market for dressing the next generation of fashion royalty — the daughters of Bill Blass cronies such as Nancy Reagan, Katharine Graham and Brooke Astor — and reportedly forked over $50 million for the company.
The house does $725 million in annual retail sales — but about 97 percent of that is generated by Blass’s 40 clothing and accessories licenses.
Fashion wags say the new team could have shut down the ready-to-wear business after Blass retired and focused purely on the lucrative licensing deals — since the name is thoroughly entrenched in the world of fashion. But they noted that producing a ready-to-wear line boosts the company’s profile and adds a certain luster.