Everyone has a favorite decade that they would have liked to experience. Some people would have loved to live in the days of Marie Antoinette or Cesar and Cleopatra. NOT ME!!! I've always longed for the days of Studio 54. I was born in 1976, so by the time I was old enough to have developed my own individual taste in music and fashion the 80's had just kicked into high gear with the innovation of Music Television and the music video. Gone but not forgotten were the sounds of disco and the over the top fashion of the 70's.
My obsession with this decade started in the early 90's when bands like Deee-Lite and the B-52s started to revive the style of the seventies with their bouffant hair and platform shoes. I had picked up a copy of the Andy Warhol Diaries my freshman year of high school and did not put it down for a second reliving this fabulous time in history. Andy's diary entries were filled with tales of his life in the late seventies with his "Halston family" which consisted of Andy, Bianca Jagger, Victor Hugo, and Halston himself with occasional cameos from Liza Minnelli, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Martha Graham. Who was this man Halston? I had to learn more!
Halston wasn't the only great designer of the decade, but in a time where most people turned to the French fashion houses for the newest looks Halston was changing the face of fashion in America with his minimalist jersey dresses and ultra suede fabric which he not only used for his clothing but also to decorate his luxurious apartment located above his Olympic Tower showroom. Andy's diaries were just the tip of the iceberg.
I started listening to old disco records I found in thrift stores and there once again was the name of the man I had read so much about, "Halston".
He wears the finest clothes
The best designers, heaven knows
Ooh, from his head down to his toes
Halston, Gucci, Fiorucci
He looks like a still
That man is dressed to kill
"Hes the Greatest Dancer" lyrics by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards
Roy Halston Frowick was born on April 23, 1932. Roy developed an interest in sewing from his mother, and he began creating hats and altering clothes for his mother and sister as a child. In 1952, Halston moved to Chicago where he went to school and worked as a window dresser.
Halston's first big break came when the newspaper wrote a brief story on his fashionable hats. In 1957, he opened his first shop, the Boulevard Salon. It was at this point that he began to use his middle name as his professional moniker. During his childhood he had been referred to as Halston to distinguish between himself and his uncle Roy.
Halston moved to New York City in 1957 and worked as a milliner. Within a year, he had been named co-designer at Daché, became acquainted with several fashion editors and publishers, and left Daché's studio to become head milliner for department store Bergdorf Goodman.
Halston achieved great fame after designing the pillbox hat for Jackie O, and when he moved to designing women's wear, Newsweek dubbed him "the premier fashion designer of all America."His designs were worn by Bianca Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor, Liza Minelli and Lauren Hutton.
Halston changed the face of fashion in the 70's and he continued his success into the early eighties but due to a few bad personal and business decisions he left the spotlight. On March 26, 1990, with his family by his side Halston, 57, succumbed to AIDS.
I never had the pleasure of wearing a Halston original but the hunt is not over. So I patiently wait for my "Halston Moment" .
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