DISCO DESIGNER
A Groovy Rich Documentary that Relives Halston.
He was the James Dean of haute couture, utterly cool and glam; an omnipresent cigarette dangling from his rich lips. Halston, the ‘70s superstar fashion designer was the Pied Piper to glitzy Studio 54 with Liza Minelli and Bianca Jagger following in his steps and clamoring to wear his revolutionary unstructured designs. But while his woody bergamot scent, “Halston” has been a fixture on women since 1975, the father of fashion has all but been forgotten by today’s youth.
The arrival of the May 24th documentary, Halston will most assuredly change that. The killer soundtrack, complete with disco beats is worth the price of admission alone. Writer-director Frédéric Tcheng (Dior and I, Valentino: The Last Emperor) lusciously recreates Halston’s forgotten legacy with many of his famous friends (Andy Warhol speaks in archival footage) bearing witness to his extraordinary professional and personal life with all its ups and subsequent career pitfalls. Fashion writer/actress Tavi Gevinson goes through the designer’s archives and moves his life story along at a well-paced clip as she investigates his historic trail like a fashionista Nancy Drew. Halston will forever remain in the thralls of history for designing Jacqueline Kennedy’s pink pillbox hat that she donned for her husband’s inauguration.
Born Roy Halston Frowick in 1932 and raised in Des Moines, he created a chapeau for his mother at seven using the neighbor’s flowers and would go on to become a window dresser in the 1950s and a milliner in Chicago’s Ambassador Hotel. Years later, Halston arrived in New York and worked with the famed hat firm, Lilly Daché. In 1958, he moved on to Bergdorf Goodman heading up their custom millinery department. He immersed himself in studying international styles when he set off abroad with the store’s buyers who adored him as did Vogue. By the mid-60s he was designing fashions and opened his own shop in 1969 on Madison Avenue launching Halston Limited, his first ready-to-wear line favoring cashmere and Ultrasuede. He designed tailored suits, crepe and chiffon gowns and he would eventually popularize the immortal caftan. Known for wearing trademark black turtlenecks and tuxedos, he lived a fast life, had a quick temper and a tempestuous 10-year on-and off-relationship with Venezuelan artist, Victor Hugo whose relationship began as one commentator said when, “One night Halston dialed a dick.” It was when he went from “class to mass” and sold his line to J.C. Penney’s (for about a billion dollars) that Halston’s career went belly-up and his once brilliant and cutting-edge decisions became circumspect. Bergdorf’s, amongst others, stopped selling his designs and he faced fashion Siberia. How could he be a luxury brand for the elite and to the suburban mom at the same time? “His clothes danced on you,” said his pal Minnelli. It seems Halston’s, America’s first international designer who died at 57 in 1990 from AIDs-related complications, demise came when he tangoed with so-called wrong crowd. But it’s the masses of yesterday who still remember him so fondly. Halston brings the iconic designer back for all of us.
