COLUMN ONE : The New Wrinkle in Polyester : The villain behind the leisure suit may be rehabilitated by updated uses in clothing, medicine and sports. However, not everyone is willing to forget the ‘70s.

America’s most frightening fabric is trying to make a comeback. Wrinkle-free, dirt-repellent polyester--chief culprit of the leisure suit scare of the 1970s--has found new life as a stand-in for human arteries, polar bear fur and New York Marathon running surfaces.

Polyester is also fashioning a new image among top clothing designers, who say modern versions of the stuff could revolutionize the apparel industry.

Better dressing through chemistry has returned.

Much of the commotion centers around microfiber, a type of polyester thread so thin that researchers at one laboratory drilled a hole through human hair and fitted the fiber inside it. Microfiber can be formulated to look and feel like virtually any natural material--from silk to suede--yet it is washable and unappetizing to moths, and “dirt kinda just flies off it,” says Frank Rizzo of the Parsons School of Design in New York. “It breathes, it’s comfortable. . . . It has no similarity to the polyester we knew in the 1970s.”

Well, maybe one similarity: Petroleum-based clothing still doesn’t get much respect.

Although U.S. chemical companies cooked up enough polyester last year to outfit everyone on the planet in plaid golf pants, production is down 15% from its 1981 peak. Arch-nemesis cotton, on the other hand, continues its ascent. And skeptics wonder if microfiber--or anything else short of mass hypnosis--can turn things around.

Polyester simply seems unable to shake its reputation as the clammy, sweaty and static-prone fabric of the Disco Decade: “It’s ugly, it feels icky and it stinks when I wear it,” said Valentina Gnup-Kruip, a recovering dysfunctional dresser from Santa Barbara. “Plus it reminds me of the Bee Gees.”

To counter such sentiment, manufacturers have tried everything from multimillion-dollar PR blitzes to begging the federal government to change polyester’s name--all to no avail.

It has been a stunning reversal of fortune for the “miracle fabric” of 1951. That was the year Du Pont introduced Dacron, a molten concoction of ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid that, when cooled, promised to make ironing obsolete.

For years, Dacron and its offspring could do no wrong. By the time Richard M. Nixon moved into the White House, the stuff was everywhere, according to polyester historian Samuel Winchester of North Carolina State University. “Elvis Presley was walking around in it, and the Beatles. . . . It took over.”

Sure, the fabric felt a little slimy against the skin, but “people were more willing to be uncomfortable then,” said David Wolfe, a fashion forecaster with the Doneger Group, which buys apparel for retailers. “If a woman was wearing a girdle and stockings underneath her clothes, by the time she put on the polyester she didn’t even notice it.”

Trouble loomed, however.

First, the leisure suit--evil stepchild of the Nehru jacket--was unleashed on an unsuspecting public. Then, toward the beginning of the 1980s, the “back to nature” movement kicked in.

“The leisure suit was the height of polyester’s success . . . but also the abyss,” said Larry Hotz, a spokesman for designer Donna Karan. The idea of a comfortable, wash-and-wear-style suit was groundbreaking at the time, and lured many buyers. But it didn’t take long for the jokes to start. “The fabric was unbearable,” Hotz said. “It looked like it had a ton of starch in it and the colors (lurid lime greens, otherworldly oranges) were grotesque.”

Workmanship was another problem. Some manufacturers began cutting corners, flooding the market with polyesters that held up poorly and looked cheap, Winchester says.

Then the granola-heads arrived and chemistry-set clothing fell further out of fashion. One by one, polyester manufacturers shut down plants, merged or dropped out of sight altogether. “It was a blood bath,” said Winchester, a co-editor of the soon-to-be-published “50 Years of Polyester,” which chronicles the fiber from its 1942 synthesis in a British laboratory to the present day.

Of the 13 polyester makers that once operated in the United States, only a handful are still in the business, he says. Du Pont is the nation’s largest, followed by Hoechst Celanese Corp. (No. 2 in the United States but No. 1 worldwide) and Wellman Inc. Those three companies control 90% of the polyester trade in the United States.

The companies that survived had to shift focus. Eastman Kodak Co., creator of Kodel-brand fabric, turned to polyester-based plastic soda-pop bottles, cigarette filters and X-ray and camera film.

Others used the substance to make artificial blood vessels, tire cords, pillows, sleeping bags and upholstery. For the past three years, polyester has also been rolled out in carpet form across four Manhattan bridges during the New York Marathon. Hoechst Celanese created the special rugs after runners complained about the jarring effect of tromping over the bridges’ metal gratings.

And then there’s the polyester polar bear. Du Pont’s new Thermax fiber--which is used in thermal underwear, gloves and other cold-weather gear--is said to mimic the fur of Arctic bears by retaining heat but not perspiration. Better mammals through chemistry.

In mainstream fashion, however, polyester was forced underground--into cotton blends, children’s clothing and underwear. Various attempts to invent a new image for the fabric had about as much effect as “dripping water on a rock,” said Du Pont’s Jeff McGuire.

Then, about two years ago, microfiber came to the United States.

The thread--a Du Pont breakthrough that had been perfected in Japan for use in kimonos--”eliminates most of the bad things about polyester,” says a spokesman for designer Karan, one of numerous fashion heavyweights latching onto the fabric (mostly for raincoats and exercise attire). “It’s not a flash in the pan. It’s going to have staying power.”

“Microfiber for body and soul” suggests one manufacturer’s ad campaign. “A finer feel for life,” says another.

But shoppers have yet to identify with the new polyester, which goes by such brand names as Micromattique and Trevira Finesse. In one survey, consumers thought microfiber was a new breakfast cereal or long-distance phone wiring system.

In other quarters, such as Levi Strauss & Co., polyester’s latest incarnation is already viewed as a flop. “It’s been around a few years. If it was going to do anything, it would have happened by now,” said Bob Siegel, president of Levi menswear.

Another strike against microfiber is its polyester roots--which by law must be disclosed on apparel labels. “It’s sorta like being named Al Capone Jr.,” said John Roberts, a marketing manager with Hoechst Celanese.

Then again, not everyone despises the old polyester.

Among certain teen-agers and adults (usually those afflicted by nostalgia for the ‘70s), Dacron and friends have achieved cult status. Five years ago, San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Mythology showcased “unnatural fibers, unspeakable patterns,” a collection of “historic” polyester shirts.

And local teen-agers are reportedly snapping up any and all attire associated with the era of Barry Manilow and Billy beer.

Nationwide, old polyester is the driving force behind an underground “fabric rebellion,” Wolfe says. “Young people love aggravating the Establishment, and nothing does that better than polyester.”

But modern polyester might have a tougher time coming out of the closet. Comedians, for one, still show no mercy for the stuff, even when it’s humanely diluted in a natural-fiber blend: “I’m not going to tell you that I haven’t ever done a 50-50,” joked comic Carrie Snow. “But it’s cheapened me somehow.”

Supermarket tabloids also take occasional potshots. “Polyester Underwear Turns Studs Into Duds,” blared a recent headline in the Weekly World News, home to aliens and Elvises.

Nonetheless, pro-polyester forces seem to have the momentum. Man-made threads are all the rage in Europe. And China has plans for two factories that would each cough out a billion pounds of polyester a year, an amount equal to the capacity of Du Pont’s entire U.S. operation.

Americans are also converting. Industry-sponsored touch tests comparing microfiber with natural fabrics have fooled all but a handful of fashion experts and consumers. And some avowed polyester-phobes appear willing to give the fabric a second chance: “If you can’t tell the difference (from other fabrics), I’d wear it,” allowed Gnup-Kruip. “I’m willing to embrace the future.”

That’s cause for optimism, says Du Pont’s McGuire, but it’s not enough that microfiber can mimic natural fabrics. If it looks like cotton and feels like cotton, people will just buy cotton. Polyester, he says, must come up with its own unique image.

And the most likely place for that image, so far, is in raincoats, exercise attire and outdoor clothing--niches where man-made fabrics “are more accepted,” says Hoechst’s Roberts.

From there, the theory goes, polyester will gradually return to good graces in other areas of fashion. Comedian Snow, however, insists that all the touch tests in the world won’t change her opinion: “I can smell polyester from way far away. It still scares me.”