HALSTON
US, 2019, 105 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Frederic Tcheng.
A biography and first portrait of American fashion designer, Halston. Two years later, there was a television series of the same name, and dramatised portrait of the fashion designer, played by Ewan McGregor. For audiences who have seen neither production, the recommendation would be to see the documentary first to get a more objective understanding of Halston, his personality, the career ups and downs, and then check the dramatisation with the more factual account.
The great advantage of this documentary is the range of talking heads, detailed knowledge of Halston, glimpses of them during his life but so many of them being interviewed decades later, looking back in retrospect. This is especially true of his great friendship with Liza Minnelli. There are many of those who worked with him, Joe Eula for design, Elsa Peretti for jewellery, the model, Marisa Berenson, young designer later Hollywood film director, Joel Schumaker, number of the business executives, especially the overseer of the company who knew nothing about fashion, comments by financial supervisor, Carl Epstein, by the designer who is brought in to save the company as well as quite a number of the models talking on their experiences with Halston, the design, then modelling the clothes.
Halston, relying just on this name for his identity in the fashion world, and from the midwest, the film indicating something of his background and family, but emerging in the late 50s and early 1960s, senior significant for the design of the pillbox hat Jackie Kennedy, in the car at her husband’s assassination.
The film highlights his talent with finding fabrics, intuitively, patterns and hanging easily. There is his intensity in his work, his relationship with associates, an indication of his sexual orientation and his partnership with would-be artists, Victor Hugo.
Great advantage of this documentary is that there is so much film footage to incorporate, Halston as a celebrity, at work, the range of shows and the catwalk. Prominent amongst these was his going to Versailles with other American designers, snubbed by the French, relying on the talented Liza Minnelli and her performance, and the acclaim from the French, an acknowledgement of American fashion.
Halston thought he was skilled in business but in fact was not, some years designing for Bergdorf-Goodman in New York, then going out on his own, great attention given to his office, its layout, luxurious. There are the stories of various encounters with business executives, especially David Mahoney, the designing for JC Penney and ordinary American women, contracts, executives with knowledge of fashion taking over, setting up of the designers…
Ultimately, Halston contracted aids, retired to San Francisco, guided the disease.
Not necessarily an attractive personality during his life but a genius in his particular area, influential, but this story of a rise and fall.
