Roy Halston Frowick is usually considered as the designer who put American fashion on the map.
Born in 1932 in Iowa, Halston moved to New York City in the late 50s and started working as a milliner.
After shooting to fame when Jacqueline Kennedy wore one of his pillbox hats at her husband's presidential inauguration, Halston moved on, becoming a fully fledged womenswear designer well-known for his minimalist and streamlined creations, rather popular among celebrities such as Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli and Elizabeth Taylor.
The designer died in 1990 and, in recent years, attempts were made at resurrecting his fashion label.
In 2008 it was Marco Zanini’s turn, though things didn’t work out and he was soon replaced by a team of designers. Then came the appointment of a new creative director, Greek-born and London-based Marios Schwab.
The recipient of the Young Designer of the Year prize at the 2006 British Fashion Awards, Schwab became rather popular in the last few years for his interesting creations characterised by striking sculptural elements.
Schwab presented his first collection for the seminal American label during the latest edition of New York Fashion Week, launching it with a warehouse installation in Manhattan’s West Side.
Apparently both the inspiration for the collection palette – comprising electric blue, saffron yellow, bright red, emerald green, aubergine and more muted shades such as light and dove grey – and the set design came from cinema and precisely from 1978 thriller The Eyes of Laura Mars directed by Irvin Kershner.
It was somehow impossible not to wish that such a film could have inspired maybe a slightly more nightmarish and visionary/visual chaos à la Emilio Miraglia’s The Red Queen, but everything was rather tamed, as if the main inspiration for the collection hadn't been developed as much as possible and as well as it could have been.
The stylised violence fashion photographer Laura Mars injected in her images in the film was indeed missing (unless you consider the cut out motifs as metaphors for slashes…) while the attention focused (at least on the set of the installation) on mirrors, important elements in Kershner's film.
There were very few references to Halston, apart from the echoes in the long and fluid evening halter-neck dresses. Indeed, in his attempt to modernise the label Schwab decided not to check out the archives, coming up with short dresses with sculptural details, cut out motifs or appliquéd beads and crystals.
The designer made an effort, but some of the shapes and silhouettes and innovative materials such as neoprene used next to wool, leather, silk jersey and crepe satin, reminded in their almost architectural details of Schwab’s own designs.
A yellow belted cape called to mind 70s fashion while the short grey coats with fur inserts and sleeves and leather brown dresses were distant references Halston’s more muted palette for his hostess uniforms.
The felt helmets didn’t convince, but interesting notes were added by the boots with slits, sandals with chunky padded straps and sculptural jewellery by Jacqueline Rabun.
As a whole the collection wasn’t bad, but it lacked variation and it wasn’t enough to resurrect a fashion line, in the same way as it’s not enough having enlisted actress Sarah Jessica Parker as the "creative consultant" (a job usually involving a celebrity checking out what's in his/her own wardrobe and mixing it with something found in a defunct fashion house archives or seen on fashion magazines…) for the Halston Heritage line.
Begging celebrities, actresses, models, singers, TV presenters and other obnoxious famous people to jump on board and design a collection doesn’t always guarantee high sales in the shops: it would definitely be much more refreshing to leave famous people where they are and let young and talented designers do their jobs.
That said it would also be advisable not to resurrect defunct fashion houses: better to have a glorious past than an embarrassingly disappointing future.
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