whatever happened to helmut lang? A young couple takes on a still-young name with, as Sally Singer learns, cleverness and care.

Byline: Sally Singer

We're not him, so we can't even try to reproduce him. I just can't think about Helmut." So says Nicole Colovos, wife of Michael Colovos and, with him, the cofounder of Habitual. She was organizing the looks for their debut collection for Helmut Lang, which will arrive in stores this spring. If the Colovoses were trying to avoid falling into the thrall of the Viennese meister, they were gloriously unsuccessful. Here were men's-cut trousers for women with that skinny slouchiness that's one part Patti Smith, another part Stephanie Seymour. There were the softest, almost vaporous, cotton jerseys pieced and patchworked into tank tops-cum-dresses that would drive Stella Tennant back to the altar for nostalgic fashion reasons (Stella was married in Helmut Helmut).

Crisp unwashed-denim jackets with interior finishings that a bespoke tailor would respect; jeans that give sexy a little bag at the butt-hot girl wearing her hot boyfriend's jeans-and drop in stovepipes down the legs; overdyed jeans with legs even skinnier than stovepipes (drinking straws?); tailored jackets with thin lapels and skinny arms that fit tight through the hips but droop seductively on the torso . . . all these to-die-for pieces looked both strangely familiar and entirely new. "Helmut Lang has a history behind it," explains Nicole. "It has a following." Adds Michael, "We're just making things that we want to wear. Hopefully the aesthetic will maintain the integrity that he established."

That integrity-a commitment to an urban and above all modern vision of elegance, invention, and utility-has been sorely missed, even mourned, in the nearly two years since Lang's business was shut down by its corporate owner, Prada, and Lang retreated to East Hampton to ponder his options. When recently asked where she shops in New York, French Vogue editor in chief Carine Roitfeld replied, "I have no more shopping rituals since Helmut Lang closed." A whole generation of urban-directional types still preciously dry-clean and wear their Helmut jeans and parkas, and still feel a pang of irresolvable Weltschmerz when they walk the cobblestones of Greene Street in SoHo. The point is: Everyone wants Helmut back on the scene and on the runway. And were this to happen (and surely it will? Please?), nobody would be more thrilled than Michael and Nicole Colovos, whose closets are filled with aging, worn-out Helmut Lang.

But the Colovoses get to play with ...