
Bettmann/Bettmann/Getty Imagesįirst Lady Jackie Kennedy put Halston on the map when she wore his pillbox hat to John F. Jackie Kennedy in a pillbox hat designed by Halston.

Jackie Kennedy’s hat helped launch the designer. He never lacked ambition, but this collaboration, along with the acquisition of his label by Esmark, proved to be the beginning of the end for Halston.īelow is a quick summary of Halston’s unparalleled career, including his rise to fame and how it all came crashing down. After getting his start as an upscale milliner, he would design gowns, shoes, perfumes, handbags, and eventually a myriad of ready-to-wear garments in a then-unheard-of partnership with JCPenny department stores. Halston put his stamp on just about everything. He believed his dresses should move and flow, like a “dancing partner” for the wearer, and it took a lot of work to make his designs look so effortless. Hyperaware of how women’s lives were changing at the time, many of his most successful designs offered ease and simplicity: fluid caftan-style gowns, and ultrasuede shirt-dresses - the latter of which pioneered the “day-to-night” ensemble for working women. And that’s what we tried to do, and I, with you know, the scenes with his lovers, or the scenes with Liza, you know, where maybe you see behind that sort of facade.”īut Halston didn’t just create an image for himself - he had a vision for how everyone should dress. “And then you’re looking to see if there’s a difference when he’s like behind the scenes or speaking with his friends.

“When the cameras were rolling when he’s being interviewed, he was always on,” the actor tells Bustle. To prepare, McGregor watched Halston’s unedited interviews, trying to get a peek behind the curtain. He was self-made in every sense of the word - he even adopted a new style of speaking to better fit with his image. The mononymous fashion designer was born Roy Halston Frowick in Des Moines, Iowa to working class parents, but his talents propelled him to worldwide fame in the ’70s.

But while Halston may take liberties, the show is adapted from Steven Gaines’ biography Simply Halston, and is based on true events. Halston’s niece (and director of the Halston Archives) Lesley Frowick has told Variety that the designer’s family is “collectively disappointed” by the series, and that the creators “never contacted” his family or his Archives.
LIZA MINELLI REHAB SERIES
Starring Ewan McGregor as the titular American mogul, the five-part series takes place over several decades of Halston’s remarkable career, recounting the rise and fall of the man who changed American fashion forever. Halston, the limited series the iconic fashion designer, is Netflix’s latest must-watch show.
