Deja Vu

"I've been trying to be able to do it on my own. You can do it for a year, but you can't expand," Burrows says. "It's a little frustrating when you're on the verge of collapsing because you can't find backing."

"At my age," he says, "it's harder."

For all the frustrating truths about the ingenue scrambling to the top, the story of the veteran trying to do it all over again may be little more than a heartbreaking pipe dream.

"Who comes back after 30 years?" Hardison wonders.

Very Much Alive

One afternoon at the end of April, Burrows and business partner John Miller gathered in the Garment District offices of publicist Karen Erickson, in a spacious loft on the 24th floor of an office building not far from the Parsons School of Design. Erickson's Showroom Seven pulsates with color, from the work of various designers on display and the quirky furnishings filling the space, giving it the look of an expensive kindergarten.

Erickson has been hired to perform a dual role for Burrows. She offers a central location where store buyers can see his collection, and she is attempting to mastermind a media blitz. Erickson is a tiny woman -- a sparrow in bohemian black -- who throws off a kinetic energy and the constant feeling that tomorrow is too late.

There is a strong market for vintage Burrows, but not for the new collections, even though they possess much of the same cheerfully, colorfully sexy spirit. A sunburst-hued chiffon dress with butterfly sleeves flows down the torso and splashes to the floor in a waterfall of ruffles. A long black $1,200 jersey dress is ringed with bands of turquoise and white.

The team at Showroom Seven doesn't have a plan, but it has a lot of ideas. Staff members have brainstormed names of celebrities who might be enticed to wear the clothes: Maggie Gyllenhaal, Drew Barrymore, Scarlett Johansson. They have a list of magazines they'd like to see feature the collection, most of which tend to be esoteric publications with a circulation -- and this is only a slight exaggeration -- limited to about five prominent stylists. The goal is to position Burrows as a brand being organically resurrected by iconoclasts and influencers in the manner of Hush Puppies, Dickies and Puma.

Erickson is not Burrows's most eloquent cheerleader, but she is certainly his bluntest. She speaks in prayerful pleas and interjections. The problem with Burrows, as she sees it, is that a lot of people in the fashion industry, particularly editors in their twenties and thirties, do not realize Burrows is still alive. Because he is so equated with fashion's history -- the '70s, Studio 54 and a drugged-out joie de vivre epitomized by designers such as Giorgio di Sant'Angelo and Halston -- they assume that he, like the others, is dead.

"How do we change that?" Erickson cries, as she throws her arms toward the heavens.

Hooked on Clothes

In the feverish discussions about the future of his work and the fact that he is not -- not -- dead, Burrows is the least animated person in the room. His expression suggests embarrassment over the fuss, fatigue in anticipation of the hurdles he must clear and caution about wishing too hard for success. In particular, he does not look especially enthused at the prospect of courting celebrities. But he does not deny the importance of doing just that.

"It helps to get that exposure. It helps to get you in that 'class,' " he says. "It helps people believe you can reach the goal of profitability."