Ushering in this new Blass, Benz isn't trying to be too referential to the brand's aesthetic of yesteryear: “We’re blessed and burdened with an enormous archive… It was better for me to think about what Bill Blass could be, instead of exposing my brain to lots of things that it was,” he says. “Doing something tightly edited, bold, and with a very clear point of view was the only way to cut through all the confusion about what the brand was. When I think about what Bill Blass himself would want me to be pulling from the archive, I imagine he’d say, ‘Nothing! Get rid of it, lock the door! It’s a mausoleum, it’s dusty, it’s old! Get out!’”

So, what’s the point of applying a very modern business model to a name that’s been around the block since 1970 and had its heyday in the '80s? “There’s a great deal of value in a brand with intrinsic, psychological history, be it good, bad, or otherwise. Any sort of history garners attention from the consumer," Benz says. "People make brands all the time and put an ‘&’ between their names, fabricating some sort of brand ethos.”

That said, even Benz isn’t banking on former Blass customers necessarily clamoring for his designs. “I anticipate that the vast majority of our customers will have no past relationship to the brand,” Benz says. "The majority of people are very familiar with the name, whether they know he’s a fashion designer or not (someone asked me if Bill Blass was a senator). The name does resonate with some kind of American, luxury, intangible thing to people. It’s not a new name people have to learn how to pronounce.” The new Bill Blass customer, as Benz sees it, is a “global, mobile, agile, professional woman, hitting the pavement and probably carrying multiple bags and changing throughout the day.” She's 25 to 35 years old and “tired of fast fashion and just wants to find really great pieces that have some longevity.”