Halston : America’s Yves Saint Laurent
By Arushi Khosla December 3, 2009
“You’re only as good as the people you dress.” – Roy Halston Frowick
What do you know about the man who introduced women to ultrasuede, slinky jerseys, tunics galore and pillbox hats? Did you know that he had dressed Jackie O, Liz Taylor, Liza Minnelli and other reining It girls? Did you know that he succumbed to AIDS?
Roy Halston Frowick, considered legendary by many, was born in 1932 in Iowa. From a young age on, he was getting increasingly interested in the art of millinery. He helped his mother revamp clothes and hats. He went to School of the Art Institute in Chicago and soon after, opened his own millinery salon in the aforementioned city which catered to the likes of Gloria Swanson and Deborah Kerr. In 1958, he went on to join Lily Dache in New York City, quickly rising the ranks to become co-designer and gratefully leaving with publishing, photography and editor contacts to become the head milliner at Bergdorf Goodman.
What matters is, that despite all the glitterati of the early and mid 70s (hello, Liz Taylor, Andy Warhol, Bianca Jagger, Ali McGraw), it is decidedly a near impossible fact to have missed Halston, strutting around in his black and navy cashmere turtlenecks, holding onto a cocktail and cigarette as if his life depended on it. And in some ways, it did.
He was so infamous that he soon began using only his middle name to distinguish himself. Eat your heart out, Anna Wintour.
What Halston’s clothes offered was what few others were at the time: sleek, minimal, clingy and ridiculously well-tailored. He had acquired a permanent spot between Bianca Jagger and Liza Minnelli at Studio 54. You just don’t get more 70s than that.
He arguably tailored not just clothes, but lifestyles. As Charlie Scheips once writely wrote, Halston creates clothes that transform anyone into a sexy, smoky lounge lizard. Naturally, all the wannabe and established party girls flocked.
In 1977, he changed the face of airline clothing forever on being hired by Brainiff Airlines and created an uber cool, seventies discotheque look for them.
As a rule, his clothes exuded the kind of simplicity that immediately draws women towards them. Clean, simple lines but tailored impeccably in sumptuous fabrics and with sexy cuts. He was one of the most innovative and wearable designer America ever had. Arguably, the most.
The man was a master of invention. Creating chic hats to satisfy equally chic women for three decades straight, what with hairstyles fluctuating from beehive to bouffant to loose to unstyled, was no mean feat but the man did it and he did it pretty damn well. He was famous for rejecting fabric after fabric after fabric and deemed most junior designers incompetent as luxury was the highest priority for him and he wanted a particular texture and ONLY that texture.
Of all the great, established designers of the world, Halston got his fabrics right. While those designers were doing their thing, trying to make a statement with a new cut or a new style, Halston did so with a new fabric altogether: Ultrasuede. A material that nearly rivaled denim at the time. If that’s not enough to bewonder or make a person gawk, then I don’t know if much is. He essentially created what garments are made of ; what legions would attempt to use, an undeniable art form.
He was also a designer of knitwear: sweaterdresses, wide legged jersey trousers, turtlenecks, slinky halter dresses, cashmere dresses, sweater sets, box shoulder-padded jackets, all made in the most luxe fabrics available. His use of tie-dyed chiffon and matter jersey is something countless amateur designers tried to emulate, years after his demise.
He was the kind of Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren. He reigned supreme, no doubt. He designed the ever popular pillbox hat for Jackie O for the 1961 presidential inauguration , and the rest, as they say, would be history.
Despite being an incredible designer, he was a business mastermind. He could craft a brand out of a label. He signed with JC Penney to create a less expensive version of his clothes, a move which is very common now but was extremely controversial at the time. He basically set that trend. Newsweek went on to dub him “the premier fashion designer of America”. And rightly so. He understood that what American women wanted at the time was glamorous elegance, and he gave it to them in style.
Apart from Ultrasuede, he also created the shirtdress. This did a lot to catapult him to an even higher level of fame than he was already enjoying. The simple, sexy piece of clothing which flatters almost every body shape was an instant hit. He also popularized cashmere, knitted stoles and halter dresses which was to Liza Minnelli what the pillbox hat was to Jackie O.
His infamous studio was far from the usual monochrome schemed, fur carpeted designer studio. Extravagant batik walls, orchids in massive proportions and Indian furnishings. He also popularized the potential of music on runway shows, something that is as commonplace in the fashion industry today as platform shoes.
So if he was so goddamned perfect, why did he fall? And fall so hard, at that. The man, was, a perfectionist, too much of one for his own good. He could never, ever trust another to do what he could for his label. He had to do every design himself. When Norton Simon, who had bought a major part of the label, decided to make a deal with JC Penney to mass produce his designers, Halston’s clientele, the jet set of the era really, were alienated. They saw his as their icon and were apparently deeply disappointed.
Drugs and AIDS, got the better of him. At the time, the It crowd barely even considered AIDS being on the horizon and barely acknowledged that they could be addicted to the drugs they were so casually living on. In 1988, he received the news that he had AIDS and succumbed to it two short years later, leaving the fashion world dumbfounded and depressed. He was charismatic, loftily ambitious and impeccably dressed, how could one not miss him? The man convinced and had the power to get Princess Grace of Monaco don a blue Ultrasuede shirtdress. His perfume, Halston, is the second most selling fragrance in history, losing out only to Chanel No. 5.
Ultimately, the old school man could not deal with the fact that businessmen are what decide the the fate of the fashion world, then the designers and much less the fashionable people. He became a slave to the brand that he had worked untiringly hard to construct, holding true the classic rags to riches story.
Who ever thought that a boy from Iowa who altered his mother’s hats and learned sewing from her would one day become one of fashion’s most remembered legends?
The first international fashion superstar and and undisputedly the best designer America ever had, will remain just that. R.I.P, master of detail and cutting.
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Submitted on December 3, 2009 in Who's Who.
Arushi is a fashion enthusiast from Delhi, India with an undying passion for all things fabulous.. She believes strongly in both the art and business sides of the fashion industry and is an ardent style blogger on her blog http://www.FabBlab.blogspot.com In addition, she also blogs for Vogue India and works for many a fashion publication including Haute Mimi International, Glossy magazine and Digital Temple magazine, etc. Tom Ford is more of an icon to her than Tom Hanks. Enough said.
Arushi Khosla has contributed 32 articles to Models & Moguls.
