Leva and Come Back

'I missed the hellhole period of fashion, " declares Michael Leva, Seventh Avenue's latest comeback kid. No stranger to the infernal workings of the apparel industry, in 1991 Leva found himself lauded by the press, swamped with orders—and out of business. Now he's bent on nothing short of fashion salvation. "I want to bring back real clothes that relate to real lives, real bodies. Fashion should return to structure, composition, proportion.*'

If Leva sounds like a cross between a cultural elitist and a moral crusader, it's probably the outcome of a cloistered upbringing. "I sang Gregorian chants. I had no idea what Led Zeppelin was, " he recalls. Nor did he have a clue about fashion. "I was the worst-dressed person in school!" Jolted out of his sartorial slumber by the Rhode Island School of Design, he started making monastic, sculptural clothes that captured the fickle loyalties of both arty downtowners and uptown socialites. For his return collection, which will debut next spring, Leva is promising something "lean, mean, modem, and spare, with a tinge of exoticism. 1 definitely think I have a vision that could be very successful. "

AMY FINE COLLINS