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It was only after purchasing a vintage 1910s wedding dress that I noticed it was fairly sheer. Panic set in, then Michael Vollbracht entered stage left, taking me and the dress in hand. It was only years later that he admitted I’d gotten the couture treatment: The whole frock was taken apart and put back together as it was lined with chiffon that fell in small pleats to the floor. After tackling my vintage wedding dress, Michael moved onto my living room. He thought it could do with a makeover. As that meant hiding the television, the answer was thanks, but no. It’s a decision I’ve often regretted, never more so then when I learned today of his death last week.
Michael and I were drawn together by a mutual love of fashion and illustration, first becoming acquainted when he was at Bill Blass, where he followed in the footsteps of his friend, mentor, and fellow Midwesterner. Michael certainly had his work cut out for him: He was tasked with maintaining the current client base while cultivating a new one. (Among the women he dressed were Elizabeth Taylor, First Lady Barbara Bush, and Janet Jackson.) Michael was nonplussed by my mixed review of his Fall 2005 collection, taking the attitude that people should take a look and form their own opinion. The customer was the ultimate critic, and she was a always a lady to him, no matter that the celebutante was leaving her in the dust.
Born in 1948 in Illinois, Vollbracht survived the youthquake, but he never got over the movies, which offered him solace from a sometimes difficult childhood, and introduced him to glamour with a capital G. He moved to New York in 1965 and studied illustration at Parsons, and found work both as an artist (including for Vogue) and as a designer. Among Michael’s claims to fame were the shopping bags he designed for Bloomingdale’s, featuring fabulous portraits. The clothes he made under his own name (variously Michael or Michaele Vollbracht) were extensions of his work on paper, featuring wonderful prints, color, and texture. They were totally unlike the stiffer, structured pieces he created for Geoffrey Beene’s Beene Bag line, or the more proper ones he designed at Blass.
Those who didn’t fall for Michael’s clothes were likely to fall for his charm. He was a brilliant, sometimes cutting raconteur, a skill he was later able to translate to Facebook where he posted old snapshots and the stories behind them. His words also enhanced his masterwork, a dream book titled Nothing Sacred, featuring portraits of stars and accompanying anecdotes penned in his own wonderfully expressive calligraphy. Often executed with a palette knife, his paintings literally conveyed their messages in broad strokes. They communicated efficiently and stylishly without superfluous bagatelle, much like Michael himself, who had a great appreciation for the good life, but lived modestly and with finesse. He was able to make much with little (including the best tea sandwiches I’ve ever eaten).
There was no love lost between Michael and the industry, but he really adored fashion—the craft of it. He reveled in pattern, texture, color. Still, it seems to me that he was even more taken by the people and characters who animated fashion and brought it to life, like he did, whether with fabric or on paper.
