American designer and illustrator Michael Vollbracht (a.k.a. Michaele Vollbracht) was born in Quincy, Illinois in 1947. After graduating in 1968 from Parsons School of Design (now Parsons The New School for Design), where he earned the school’s Golden Thimble Award, Vollbracht worked as an assistant to Geoffrey Beene until 1969. Vollbracht designed for Donald Brooks (1969-1971) and Norman Norell (1971-1972) before shifting his attention to fashion illustration and graphic design.

Vollbracht became an illustrator for Henri Bendel. In 1975, Bloomingdale’s commissioned him to create a shopping bag. The result was a unique design that garnered the artist considerable recognition. Neither the department store’s name nor any other type of advertisement were included -- only the stylized portrait of a woman and the artist’s signature appeared on the bag. Vollbracht went on to form a successful fashion company, Vollbracht Design Studies, in 1977. His colorful, uniquely patterned designs appealed to both celebrities and the general public, earning him the Coty American Fashion Critics Award in 1980. The mid-1980s saw Vollbracht with three ready-to-wear clothing lines along with multiple manufacturing contracts for a wide variety of products.

At the pinnacle of his success, Vollbracht retired from the fashion industry to focus on illustrating. His work has been featured in Vogue, The New Yorker and in his illustrated memoir, Nothing Sacred (1985). In 1999, Vollbracht collaborated with Bill Blass to co-write the biography Bill Blass: An American Designer and to curate a retrospective of Blass’ work at the University of Indiana. After Blass died in 2002, Vollbracht returned to fashion design, becoming the creative director of the late designer’s successful clothing line until 2007, when he once again returned to a full-time career as an artist.

Vollbracht died on June 7, 2018 in North Safety Harbor, Florida at the age of 70.