When reports of the fall 2008 collections begin to hit the press, you might feel you’ve entered a time warp.

Four of the biggest fashion names of the 1970s—Halston, Bill Blass, Ungaro, and Loris Azzaro—have been on varying degrees of the sartorial back burner for years. In some cases, there’s been a dress or even a collection here or there. In others, new designers and runway shows have cropped up, without resulting in enough buzz or profit to signal a comeback.

But this season, each one has deep-pocketed new owners—among them movie mogul Harvey Weinstein and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Asim Abdullah—with the talent and teams in place to potentially launch major revivals. Fashionistas get a chance to see two of the born-again labels, Halston and Bill Blass, during New York’s Fashion Week, which runs until February 8.

In some ways, this is simply a continuation of the revival trend that began with Chanel, Louis Vuitton, and Prada in the 1980s and 1990s and picked up steam with Christian Dior, Gucci, Burberry, Chloé, and Balenciaga in the last decade. Brands such as Yves Saint Laurent, Lanvin, and Nina Ricci have achieved critical, if not financial, success at the hands of new designers more recently. And this isn’t the end of it. Courrèges, Fiorucci, Thierry Mugler, and Vionnet are all on the list of names with the potential to be revived.

“Owners like brands with the heritage built in,” says Robert Burke of the luxury consulting firm Robert Burke Associates. The costs involved in bringing unknown designers to the tips of fashionable lips, much less building a heritage, can be prohibitive. And no matter how much money is spent, the risk of failure is high.

“It’s simply not worth the risk,” says Sagra Maceira de Rosen, managing director of Reig Capital Luxury and Retail, a family investment fund that in 2006 paid an estimated $5 million for Azzaro. It is more efficient, in terms of both time and money, to refurbish a brand that is already known—if faded. “With an old name, you are buying more than the business. You’re buying the image and the reputation.”  
    
Of course, revivals aren’t a sure thing. Yves Saint Laurent, which the Gucci Group bought in 1999, has racked up cumulative losses of about $635 million. And “profits are still just a blip on the horizon,” according to Redburn Partners analyst Lisa Rachal.  

The prices paid for the 1970s brands vary widely—from a few million dollars for Azzaro in 2006 to more than $70 million in cash and stock for Bill Blass. The latter was bringing in about $10 million a year in royalties when NexCen bought it that same year. Halston had next to no sales when the Weinstein Co. and Hilco Consumer Capital paid a reported $20 million for it in 2007. Ungaro was doing about $103 million in sales when it was sold in 2005, thanks mostly to an active license in Asia.
   

Except for a shared belief that there are signs of life and profit in these brands, the new owners have little in common. But for the most part, their plans of attack are the same. They’re sprinkling fashion fairy dust, installing new young designers who will, with luck, produce sharp collections which will result in even sharper licensing deals for high-margin accessories like sunglasses and handbags, as well as shoes. But if that sounds easy, think again.

Those leading the latest revivals face different challenges than the turnaround owners that have come before. For one thing, since the brands are younger than, say, Chanel, there are more limited fashion archives on which to draw for inspiration and identity. And if the designer was forced out early, as Halston and Azzaro were, it is even more difficult.  

Another problem with reviving a relatively young brand is that the customers who were loyal to the original designer are still alive. When Tom Ford staged his first Gucci show, few, if any, women in the audience were wearing shoes dreamed up by Guccio Gucci. The same cannot be said of the women who will be watching this season’s collections.

The playing field is also far more crowded than it was 20 years ago. “People are always looking for new things, but they like to have newness and familiarity,” Burke says. In addition to the four brands featured here, Herve Leger, Gianfranco Ferré, Valentino, Loewe, and Ossie Clark are all coming out with collections by new designers this season.

Compounding the problem is the fact that producing what was once almost a guaranteed sure winner—like a fragrance—is now more like buying a lottery ticket. According to Fragrances of the World, a company that tracks the industry, there were 693 global launches in 2006, compared with 205 in 1996. Add a global economic malaise to all of the above, and it is clear that these brands have their work cut out for them.

“The competition is tough,” concedes Rachal. “But the rewards can still be rich. It’s unlikely that all these brands will succeed, but we haven’t seen the end of the revivals yet.”