Ultra Suede: In Search of Halston

Halston, Bianca and Mick Jagger

Liza  Minnelli says she got her ‘shine’ from Halston and adds ‘I grew up in Hollywood and nothing was as glamorous as Halston.’ Bianca Jagger’s 30th Birthday party was hosted by Halston at Studio 54 where she posed in his red dress bestride a white horse.

His designs were worn by Diane von Furstenberg, Lauren Hutton, Anjelica Huston, Lauren Bacall, Babe Paley, Martha Graham and Elizabeth Taylor, he also designed the  fawn-colored domed pillbox that Jacqueline Kennedy wore in 1961 for the televised inauguration of the president, her husband, John F. Kennedy. 

His fingerprints are all over the fashion industry with Tiffany’s designer Elsa Peretti, his former model, who designed the containers for Halston’s fragrance and cosmetic lines. Even the recently passed Loulou de la Falaise, now more associated with Yves Saint Laurent,  was a model and a fabric designer for him.  He also saw the potential of the catwalk show – until then a trade event aimed mainly at buyers for retail chains – as a performance event in its own right. He set the style that would be closely associated with the international jet set of the era.

Halston Heritage Fragrance

In 1973 Halston signed away his name to Norton Simon Inc., owners of Max Factor, which wanted to develop an upmarket fragrance that launched to great success in 1975 in its iconic bean and teardrop bottle. In 1978 he told Bernadine Morris, fashion editor of the New York Times, “You have to have something for the woman who is overweight – a loose tunic and pants is good because it elongates the body. You have to have something for the woman with hips – the princess line works for her. Caftans are fine for the woman whose figure isn’t perfect.”  Halston had his own style with matinée idol looks and his  6-foot-2-inch frame dressed in his signature black turtleneck, black slacks and red blazer. Halston’s four-storey home ‘101’ on East 63rd St. with its 32-foot-high living room and floating staircase was a backdrop of  the  Studio 54 glitterati which Andy Warhol photographed and framed on its wall. He was immortalised by Sister Sledge in 1979 with their disco refrain of  ‘Halston, Fiorucci, Gucci – he’s The Greatest Dancer‘. Esquire magazine asked ”Will Halston Take Over the World?” It all started to unravel in 1983 when an ‘inexpensive’ dresses collection Halston III was launched in over 1000 J.C. Penney stores. ”What I always wanted to do was dress America,” Halston says, ”and being a dreamer, a romantic, in a way, I thought, ‘What a wonderful idea.’ It didn’t work. Bergdorf Goodman – the store that had given him his start in their hat department and carried his label for 20 years – announced that it would no longer sell Halston.  The label was sold on through a few industrial corporations and Halston, miserable, asked his lawyers to find a way for him to buy back his business.  In a draft agreement Halston would regain ownership of his clothes businesses and the rights to his name would be split by the corporations for use on the Halston fragrances and the J.C. Penney line. Women’s Wear Daily ran a story – leaked by Halston and his lawyers – announcing the deal. But in what Halston expected would be a routine meeting to settle final details, the agreement fell through. The company fell into the hands of Revlon in 1986 – prized more for its successful Halston fragrance than its couture. After Halston’s death in 1990 Revlon sold on the business and it has been through many hands since then.

Halston R-T-W A/W 2011 in georgette crêpe with crystals

In 2008 Sarah Jessica Parker, described by Interview Magazine as a ‘one-woman fashion economy’, revived the contemporary Halston Heritage range available at Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue – but the couture line did not take off. So the resurrection by investors Harvey Weinstein and Tamara Mellon along with stylist Rachel Zoe, designer Marios Schwab collapsed.  Halston, is now a ‘portfolio company of Hilco Trading, LLC’ and is headed by Ben Malka  and Creative Director Marie Mazelis both formerly from BCBG Max Azria.