“Halston” – New Five Part Netflix series From the creator of ‘American Horror Story’ – Ryan Halston Frowick’s brilliant rise and fall chart – a renowned disco-era designer. There is a lot of sex and drugs and fashion, yet the most electrifying sequence in the show (out of Friday) comes when Halston (Ewan Mcgregor) Provides a dress to his new acquaintance, Lisa Minnelli (Krista Rodriguez).
“Halston and Liza meet each other, and he just starts wrapping cloths over her body,” Rodriguez Told vogue About the scene. With a few elegant movements, Halston – who has not yet established his own label or style signature at this point – shifts from society hat maker to creative fashion talent, and Liza is still from bad Broadway singer to actual star .
Rodriguez said, “Ivan went through intensive training to find out how the draping process worked, and as a result I saw the best dress ever on my body.” “And it just came out with a bolt of cloth and a couple of pins!”
In real life, Minnelli’s godmother, Kay Thompson (author of the “Eloise” books) introduced Halston to the Broadway singer – who was already an established couturier – in her boutique in the early 1970s. But the designer actually caressed the sinful, glamorous gown with a piece of cloth like magic. And he actually had a deeply creative relationship with his friends and music, especially with Minnelli.
Halston biographer Steven Gaines told The Post, “Helston understood Liza in a way no one else had.” “He benefitted greatly from her starlight, but he also loved Liza.”
It wasn’t just that he was a great fashion designer who could make the unconventional Minnelli look great, author of Gaines, “Just Halston,” Added. “He was also a very clever fellow who loves his friends and can be really helpful and intelligent.”
On the surface they looked like an unlikely pair. Lisa grew up between Hollywood royalty, the daughter of superstar Judy Garland and director Vincent Minnelli. Halston came from Des Moines, Iowa, where he led a typical Depression-era childhood that followed, soap box derby races, fishing and the like.
Yet his connection was immediate.
“We got together right away, and she became my fashion mate,” Minnelli Harper told the market in 2011. “I did what he said. They really took care of me … Halston told me what to wear every second. “
After her fateful meeting, Minnelli finishes her silly ’60s innings – the scene where she first meets Halston on the show, wearing a childish Peter Pan-collar dress for a more sophisticated style. Is: Slinky jumpsuit, soft suit jacket and button-down shirt worn with her classic long heels and black stockings or skirt.
She groomed her for acting (such as “Lisa with a Z” to show variety), her events (such as the slinky yellow dress she wore at the 1973 Oscars, when she won the Best Actress Award for “Cabaret” ) And its day to day. They dined and danced together at Halston’s post-modernist townhouse at 101 E. 63rd St. and the infamous nightclub Studio 54.
Certainly non-model-like at 5-foot-4, Minnelli was “short, her waist was very small – like her mother’s – she was very sensual but her legs were gorgeous, so Halston was something like a sequined bodysuit He could and he would look “phenomenal.” Said Patricia Mears, deputy director of the museum at FIT. “Even sewing pants for him, he would know how to cut just such proportions to lengthen the body.” “
Despite all the glare and glamor, there was real depth in their relationship. “They were both injured people,” Gaines told The Post. Both grew up with alcoholic parents. Both were outsiders who were running away from their past (Helston, a gay hat-maker who was escaping from his small-town Midwest roots; Minnelli, trying to emerge from the oppressive shadow of his famous parents). Both became dependent on drugs. Each needs someone who can provide non-decision support and understanding. “That’s what they found in each other,” Gaines said.
When Halston had a happy atmosphere before a big show in France – the Parisian counterattack against exceptionally American designers in the 1973 famous “Battle of Versailles” – Minnelli rushed to calm him and rally his spirits.
“She was the one who sat with Halston,” model and “Halstonet” Chris Royer later told an interviewer about the incident. “He united everyone.”
Halston later lost his company, his name, his position. He was expelled from his company in 1984, never working in fashion again. Nevertheless, Minnelli never left him, remaining loyal to him even after his death from AIDS in 1990 – even today. When a documentary film crew recently asked him about the darkest parts of Halston’s life, he refused to reveal any secrets.
“It’s so hard to interview your best friend,” He said. “Especially if what’s popular in that day and age is digging a bit. I don’t like it. I don’t like it when they did it with my mother or my father or myself. And I wouldn’t do it Halston. I just won’t. “
Hailstones
Minnelli was not the only unconventional beauty who inspired and hung with Halston. The designer had an entire circle of brilliant friends who traveled everywhere with him, always in their original designs.
Patricia Mears, deputy director of the museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, used the term for several of Halston’s musicals, saying, “Halstonettes were just a notable event.” “It was a very smart business decision – I mean, showing off your biggest designs, what’s better than the glamorous ladies around you?”
This variety of oysters included Midwest blonde Karen Björnsson, African model Eman (who made her runway debut in Halston), Statue Angelica Huston, and (literally) larger-than-life Pat Est. One thing he generally said was, Halston biographer Gaines said, “attitude.”
And they were more than just moving hoardings; He really inspired and influenced her designs as well.
“There was much more direct communication between them and these models, especially in earlier years,” Mears said. “It was not like working with a customer. They were truly friends. “
Pat est
Zaftig, the curly-haired Pat Est, worked at a box factory before Halston hired him to work at his Madison Avenue showroom. She quickly became a star seller, engaging women who lunch with her sharp humor, and she also modeled on her show – where she slid down the catwalk in sparkling coats and once from a cake She jumped out too. She always looked ideal and great, with her signature fan and wild hair.
“Halston designs things that have been made specifically for me,” the 200-pound Est proudly told a TV reporter as seen in 2019 Amazon Dock “Halston.” “Which is the most incredible thing.”
Elsa Peretti
Longer, thinner than mousse Else Peretti Halston’s perfume wore his model with tear-dropped glass bottles, as well as chunky silver pendants and bangles. He later helped her get a gig designing trinkets for Tiffany.
“Elsa was different from other models,” Halston said. “There were racks of other clothes – you would make them, fix their hair and then they would put back their blue jeans. But Elsa’s style was: she made the dress she was making herself.”
Pat Cleveland
The slender African-American Cleveland traveled everywhere from Studio 54 to China with Halston and his crew. The grace and elegance of the former dancer influenced Halston’s sinuous shape, ideal for the movements of a ballerina.
Cleveland once said, “He took the cage and he made things as if you didn’t really need the structure as much as you needed the woman.”
“And she licked us girls – we were all fully dressed – and she would go to the first girl and she would whisper something in their ear. And he would say, ‘Don’t forget now, you’re the best.'”
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