Halston Male Fashion Show 1970s Show

Halston, the mononymous American mode designer whose stripped-back, body-freeing accept on luxury — caftans, halter dresses and acres of Ultrasuede — was a defining expect of the '70s, continues to fascinate.

Maybe that's because his career, now more than than three decades in the rearview mirror, still feels so contemporary, both in terms of his artful — riffs on his shirtdress are everywhere and when haven't caftans been a thing? — and his business strategy — including the once-novel concepts of brand extensions and diffusion lines. Or maybe it's because the dramatic arc of his career from anonymity to high-flight celebrity designer to scandal-page fodder makes him seem like a victim of Me Decade cancel culture. Whatever the reason, Halston's life seems to be perennially ripe for exploration in books (including Steven Gaines' "Simply Halston") and documentaries (near recently in 2010 and again in 2019). And, now, a 5-role miniseries.

"Halston," premiering Friday on Netflix, is a passion project twenty-some years in the making for executive producer and director Dan Minahan, whose fascination with the New York scene inhabited by Andy Warhol, Liza Minnelli, Halston and Victor Hugo came from reading Interview magazine and After Night mag equally a gay kid in the suburbs of Connecticut. The genesis for "Halston" would accept shape years later, in his 20s, after reading Gaines' Vanity Off-white article that after developed into "Just Halston."

"I read it and I was then struck by it that I started reading other things virtually Halston and this world," Minahan said. "The hook for me was this idea of someone coming to New York, creating this made-up name, building information technology into an empire and so existence stripped of his name and visitor — he couldn't exist Halston anymore. And to me that was very rich. It seemed similar a really archetypal American story."

Initially conceived as a feature movie, with some false starts along the way, it evolved into a limited series at the suggestion of Minahan's producing partner on the projection, Christine Vachon of Killer Films. Turning it into a v-part series immune the narrative to stretch over multiple periods of Halston'south life, Minahan said.

"My thought was to structure it around all the unlike collections or creations of Halston," Minahan said. "Then each episode is, like, the first collection, or it'south the creation of the fragrance, or it's the Battle of Versailles, or the J.C. Penney collection, to give us an opportunity to show his creative procedure and his creative genius and and so all of the maelstrom of the drama around him."

One upside of that structure is that many of the designer's defining creations — most of them painstakingly reconstructed by costume designer Jeriana San Juan, with a scant few borrowed from the archives of the Halston label's current possessor or individual collections — get ample screen time over the serial' arc. Here'southward what you'll run into — and how it helped shape the brand, and the life, of the human being portrayed in the Netflix miniseries past Ewan McGregor.

The commencement lady's pillbox hat

Freshly minted First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy with her hubby, John F. Kennedy, on Inauguration Day 1961. By choosing to accessorize her Oleg Cassini suit with a pillbox hat from Bergdorf Goodman she gave international exposure to the department store'south head milliner — Roy Halston Frowick — who would later on be known just as Halston.

(Henry Burroughs / Associated Press)

Halston's meteoric rising — like the series' showtime episode — began in 1961 with a stroke of luck: Jacqueline Kennedy accessorized her Inauguration Solar day Oleg Cassini suit with a pillbox hat custom-designed by Bergdorf Goodman milliner Roy Halston Frowick. The hat not just gave the designer's handiwork international exposure, boosted business organisation at Bergdorf'due south and became a sartorial signature for the incoming first lady, but it too spawned a copycat boom. In an interview after in his career, Halston said that a dent in the hat was the result of Mrs. Kennedy'south efforts to hold on to the hat on a windy day, noting that "everybody who copied information technology put a paring in information technology, which was so funny."

The Ultrasuede shirtdress

Halston became synonymous with the material known as Ultrasuede — in office considering of this blockbuster shirtdress.

(Netflix)

Halston didn't invent the lightweight polyester/polyurethane alloy cloth with a suede-like feel, simply he had a hand in popularizing it in the early 1970s. (Information technology was and so intertwined with Halston that a 2010 documentary most him was titled "Ultrasuede." Keen for a happy blow; Halston starting time constitute out about the fabric at a 1971 cocktail political party in Paris when designer Issey Miyake, who was wearing an Ultrasuede shirt at the time, told him the textile was "washable" — which Halston misunderstood every bit "h2o repellent." After a failed attempt to use it for raincoats (an effort referenced in the miniseries), he used Ultrasuede for a stylish have on the trench coat, which turned out to be a hit. He would go on to utilise the fabric in a range of accessories, including footwear and handbags.

Partly reflecting the designer's personal style, the shirtdress — a slightly feminized riff on the men's push-front apparel shirt with a matching fabric chugalug — was introduced in the fall of 1972. The knee-length Ultrasuede garment known as model No. 704 lighted the style world on fire and became as synonymous with Halston as the fabric it was made out of. Like the pillbox hat that launched him into the fashion blueprint stratosphere, it would exist widely copied past other designers.

The Halston fragrance canteen

The Halston creative team went to a glass foundry to re-create this fragrance bottle, designed by Halston'due south frequent collaborator Elsa Peretti.

(Atsushi Nishijima / Netflix)

The bottle itself may have been designed by Elsa Peretti (portrayed in the serial past Rebecca Dayan, who started her own very successful career designing jewelry pieces that appeared in his runway shows), but it marked Halston's beginning major brand extension. His insistence on the design — in disharmonize with the brand'due south owner, Norton Simon Inc. — is recounted in the series' third episode and serves as a harbinger of things to come up. Minahan said there was a purpose behind focusing on the perfume packaging.

"The cosmos of the bottle in the 3rd 60 minutes, that's very interesting," he said. "Because I practice think it shows a story about creative process, or [how] we utilise creative process to tell the big story. So we become to see his genius, we get to meet him making things and why he is who he is and and then all the crazy people effectually him. Yous become to encounter her [Elsa Peretti] find the shell on the embankment and so y'all go to see it become this bottle. And we really went to a glass foundry and worked with glassblowers to re-create the bottle."

Liza Minnelli

Rebecca Dayan as Elsa Peretti, Gian Franco Rodriguez every bit Victor Hugo, Ewan McGregor equally Halston, Krysta Rodriguez as Liza Minelli, Jonathan Wagner every bit Jack Haley Jr., and David Pittu as Joe Eula in "Halston." Halston designed Minnelli's hymeneals pantsuit, pictured here.

(Atsushi Nishijima / Netflix)

Halston had many patrons and celebrity champions over the course of his career — Babe Paley, Elizabeth Taylor, Bianca Jagger and Anjelica Huston among them — only none was as consistent or as close as Liza Minnelli (played in the Netflix series by Krysta Rodriguez). Although Minnelli wore the designer extensively for decades, her support for her friend was on full display during some of the almost important moments of her life, including at the 1973 Academy Awards when she took dwelling the lead actress award (for "Cabaret") in a gilded Halston ensemble, and, as recounted in the series, the designer created a custom butter-yellow pantsuit for her 1974 wedding to Jack Haley Jr.

The halter clothes

Rebecca Dayan'southward Elsa Peretti models the halter dress, which Halston popularized in the 1970s, in "Halston."

(Jojo Whilden / Netflix)

Another '70s look popularized by Halston was the halter dress. Fastening at the waist and around the cervix, the backless, often-draped style afforded freedom of movement — which helped entrench information technology on the dance floors of the disco era, most notably Studio 54. What the nightclubs didn't do to sear the style into our collective memories, Liza Minnelli did — choosing a ruby, sequined micro-mini halter wearing apparel past Halston for the 1972 Bob Fosse "Liza With a 'Z'" concert film.

Caftans

Elsa Peretti (Rebecca Dayan) tries on a newly created caftan from Halston (Ewan Gregor), in "Halston." The garment that would become a Halston signature piece.

(Jojo Whilden / Netflix )

There are a lot of free-floating fabrics to exist had across the five episodes of Netflix's miniseries, a nod to the billowy caftans that were part of the designer's oeuvre. The start episode re-creates the eureka moment with a imperial-bluish tie-dye caftan worn by Dayan'southward Elsa Peretti in a fashion show.

Halston'due south personal style

Ewan McGregor as Halston, middle, with David Pittu equally Joe Eula (wearing a boa) and Rebecca Dayan as Elsa Peretti, far right, on the dance flooring of Studio 54 in "Halston." The designer's simple, stripped-dorsum but luxe personal manner — black cashmere turtleneck sweaters and the like — were reflected in his designs.

(Atsushi Nishijima / Netflix)

The uniform Ewan McGregor's Halston wears throughout much of the series — blackness cashmere turtleneck, slacks, an array of mostly black (and occasionally white) jackets and sport coats, with nighttime sunglasses firmly in place — wasn't only part of his personal branding (though it was definitely that). Information technology was also an aesthetic that reflected the elementary, stripped-back luxe of the clothes he designed. Information technology was also, apparently, a savvy business organisation decision, according to The Times' 1990 obituary for the designer, which included this quote: "It'due south traditional in fashion that the vendeur wears blackness then as not to compete with the customer or the apparel."

Halston Iii at J.C. Penney

A woman models Halston's line for J.C. Penney from the early on 1980s, in "Halston."

(Netflix)

If there was a single downward turning bespeak in the public-facing fortunes of the Halston brand, information technology would be the deal with J.C. Penney. After the more than attainable (read, much less expensive) Halston III line was picked up by the department store chain in 1983, high-terminate retailers dropped his main line. The most notable of these was Bergdorf Goodman — his first retail champion.

Costumes for Martha Graham's 'Rite of Jump'

Martha Graham dancer George White in a Halston-designed costume in the March 1984 production of "Rite of Spring."

(Jack Mitchell / Getty Images)

The designer'southward public life — and the miniseries — come to a close with the costumes he designed for the production of "Rite of Spring" by longtime friend and supporter Martha Graham. Although far less known than his career-making looks, the draped costumes bore many of the hallmarks of his style. The bear witness debuted in February 1984. By the autumn of that year, Halston would officially be gone from the label that bore his proper name.

"In a story that'due south then much about him and the singularity of him, in the end he ends up beingness an creative person again," Minahan said. "He starts off by proverb he wants to be like Balenciaga or a couturier, he wants to be an creative person. And then he goes through every possible machination of creativity, all the way to mass market place — and loses everything — and then at the end becomes an artist once again. So that was important to me, and I recall it ends it on the right note. He's a tragic hero, merely I think he has a dignity in the way nosotros end the story."

Roy Halston Frowick would live for some other six years. He died in a San Francisco hospital in 1990 afterwards an 18-calendar month battle with AIDS. He was 57.

Share this post