Front Row - New Design Director Will Try to Revive Bill Blass - NYTimes.com TO fashion insiders, the sorry tale of Bill Blass is as familiar as pinstripes. Only a year ago the house was shuttered, and the last of four designers who tried to carry on its legacy finally gave up. After years of false starts, it seemed that Blass was just not going to be one of those names that is plucked from fashion's recycling bin and turned into the next Chanel or Dior by a younger hand. And yet, there is still a lot of interest in trying. This week, Jeffrey Monteiro, a relative newcomer with a year-old collection under his name, was chosen from roughly 100 applicants to become the new design director. He will be responsible for bringing back a high-end Bill Blass ready-to-wear collection to stores next winter, said Scott Patti, president of Bill Blass Group, a new company that now controls the trademark. So there may be a second chance (or a fifth?) for the label. "I feel like Bill's always been a part of me," said Mr. Patti, who first met Mr. Blass more than 20 years ago, when he was an executive at Mallory & Church, pitching the designer a licensing deal to make neckties. At the time, Mr. Blass was signing dozens of deals to sell suitcases, pens, shoes, umbrellas and even chocolates under his name, creating a $500-million product line, but also a tangled mess of distribution channels. Blass was sold everywhere from Saks to T. J. Maxx, ultimately chipping away at his prestige until the brand, after his death in 2002, had lost much of its worth. As Blass was closing last year, Cin Kim, the owner of Peacock Apparel Group, which makes dress shirts and matching neckties sold in boxed sets, and his brother Peter Kim acquired the trademark for a bargain price, $10 million. The brand was effectively put on ice while the company took stock of its 20 licensees and allowed half to expire. "There was not a lot of business left out there, so it kind of cleaned itself up," Mr. Patti said. But the name still has strong consumer recognition, and Mr. Patti said he believes that a new designer can reintroduce Blass as an upscale collection. Mr. Monteiro, who is 40, was born in Qatar and raised in India and Australia, where he studied fashion and had a signature line for four years. He moved to New York in 2000 and worked for Jane Mayle and Derek Lam before starting a new label of his own last year. His clothes are nothing startling, but cute and casual little dresses with a modicum of pleats and pin tucks to give them a contemporary feel. "He's very low-key and realistic," Mr. Patti said. Bill Blass designed real clothes, and that's what Jeffrey does as well. Mr. Monteiro, who starts in January, wasn't divulging much about his plans, only that his ideal Blass customer is a young professional women and that he was thinking about colors based on the paintings of Clyfford Still. "The challenge is to take something that has such weight and nostalgia and make it modern and fresh," he said. His predecessors would agree.