Our conversation stretched on for more than five hours, during which time Ms. Love demonstrated, as is widely acknowledged, a keen intelligence and a remarkable understanding of the fashion industry, both about its history and the way things work today. She came across as calm, funny and well read. She barely smoked, and was excited about the possibilities she sees before her as she finalizes a lease on a town house in the West Village, even expressing hope that her 18-year-old daughter, who was granted legal emancipation in 2009, will return to her. “I know that my daughter will come around and stop with this stuff, as long as I let it go,” she said.

Image Love, whether in the company of Tom Ford, far left; Karl Lager- feld and Gareth Pugh, center; or Rick Owens, seems to be a portrait of composure and reflection. Credit... Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images for The Weinstein Company; Eric Ryan/Getty Images; Foc Kan/Wireimage

I was tempted to agree with the writer Dennis Cooper, who defended Ms. Love as misunderstood in a flattering Spin magazine profile in 1994, portraying her drug use as minimal and her relationship with Kurt Cobain as like that of Ozzie and Harriet. Ms. Love was shown on the cover wearing a baby-doll dress and a tiara, a look that became known as “kinderwhore.” This was only two years after Ms. Love was accused of all sorts of offensive behavior in an indelible article by Lynn Hirschberg in Vanity Fair, including an allegation that she had used heroin while pregnant. “The amount of energy expended trying to track and clarify Love’s personal quirks is bizarre,” Mr. Cooper wrote. “Is she really that important?” But he later said he felt as if he had been played, after Mr. Cobain killed himself, just before the article was published.

So here was Ms. Love, 16 years later, the toast of fashion. At one point, she took me upstairs to her room to show me some clothes. The bed was unmade, and there was an overflowing ashtray on the night stand next to five prescription bottles and some junk food. “These are my wakeup cupcakes, some anti-depressants and a cellphone book,” she said without embarrassment.

“I speak to you as someone who doesn’t want to be perceived as a train wreck,” she said.

“Living in L.A. had a really bad effect on me in particular,” she said, describing what sounded like obsessive behavior regarding the legal cases regarding the rights to Mr. Cobain’s estate and allegations of financial wrongdoing. “I didn’t realize where my reputation had gone. In New York, you can attack the source of what’s gone wrong. Like what Russell did today — I called him and said, ‘You know, Russell, you are a little older than me and you should know by now, with all your crazy money and your good credit and your RushCards, to not mouth off.’ ”

Five years ago, no designer would touch her, let alone take her call. Attending the Grammy Awards at a particularly low point, after the release of her solo album, “America’s Sweetheart,” she could not get a dress. “I’m talking Versace, Westwood, not one of them,” Ms. Love said. In 2006, after completing a court-mandated rehabilitation, she decided to attend the Paris collections, but only two houses — Yves Saint Laurent and Stella McCartney — invited her to their shows. “I was taking it like a man,” Ms. Love said. “I would pay my dues.”