He created the 70s

"Halston. Gucci. Fiorucci." Names indelibly associated with Studio 54 and the last, riotously decadent days of Disco; in particular, the first name - the man who made the scene so much of a magnet for the "beautiful people" - Liza, Liz, The Warhol-ites and the pop divas. Halston. So good they named him once.











"You're only as good as the people you dress."

One of the most successful fashion entrepreneurs in history, without his designs (jumpsuits as evening-wear, maxi and midi skirts, kaftans, flowing blouses, bibbity-bobbity hats - couture and off-the-peg), the 1970s would have looked very different. And without Halston's business (and his influential friends), it would be hard to imagine how certain New York night-spots would have survived.



Facts about Halston:

• He designed Jackie Kennedy's pill-box hat for her husband's presidential inauguration in 1961.
• So associated did his brand become with the fabric called Ultrasuede, that it was also used as the title of the biographical movie about Halston.
• His uniforms for Braniff International Airways staff revolutionised the "look" of the airline industry in the age of the "jet-set".
• In an extraordinary move, in 1984, he was fired from his own company (after his drug use began to affect his work) and lost the right to design and sell clothes under his own name
• Even during his final months travelling to and from hospital (he died with AIDS-related Kaposi's Sarcoma), he retained his flamboyance - he purchased a chauffeured $200,000 Rolls-Royce Corniche to transport him and his family around, and instructed them to auction the car after his death for AIDS research.

RIP

Roy Halston Frowick (23rd April 1932 – 26th March 1990)