In 1983 the New York Times wrote a piece about Halston's "challenge of the mass market". The article referred to his first collection of clothes for the J.C. Penney Company, a project designed to appeal to the mass market customer.
Yet at the moment there is another Halston-related challenge entirely dedicated to design students: the nonprofit With Love Halston, led by the designer's niece Lesley Frowick, recently teamed up with the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) to launch the Halston Challenge.
FIT students will get the chance to create Halston-inspired designs with sustainable Ultrasuede. Prizes include three scholarships, an internship with the fashion designer Ralph Rucci, the opportunity to have their fashion illustrations published in FIDA: The Fashion Arts & Illustration Magazine, and a commemorative Elsa Peretti Tiffany & Co. award box.
Ultrasuede was a favourite of Halston and one of the biggest success stories of his career. Halston first saw Ultrasuede at a dinner party in Paris in 1971. Japanese designer Issey Miyake was wearing a shirt made with this light suede-like fabric and Halston asked what it was. Miyake told him the fabric was made in Japan. Halston understood that it was water repellent rather than washable and this misunderstanding led him on the wrong path: while experimenting with the fabric he made raincoats that, rather than repelling water, absorbed it.
The fabric was tough and resistant, yet soft and seductive; it was machine washable, durable and lightweight; warm in the winter and cool in the summer; and would also dry without leaving wrinkles. These characteristics fascinated Halston who understood this 60% polyester and 40% polyurethane textile manufactured by Japanese company Toray Industries (the company will also supply fabrics for the design competition) would have been ideal to make functional clothes or a travel wardrobe.
Halston's first successful Ultrasuede design was a simple shirtwaist dress with button down the front and a tie at the waist (model number 704) from the designer's 1972 Fall collection. Halston sold 78,000 copies of this simple model and stores, to avoid disappointing customers, kept on ordering large numbers of the designs, dubbed by the New York Times a "status security blanket".
While Halston wasn’t the only designer using Ultrasuede, he had popularized it, employing it also for a variety of accessories, including luggage, handbags, shoes, belts and bed covers. For his Fall 1974 Halston also introduced a variation – quilted Ultrasuede. Halston's fascination with Ultrasuede is also featured in Netflix’s “Halston” series starring Ewan McGregor.
The design competition may extend to other institutions in future but it starts from the FIT as it is based in New York, where Halston lived and worked. Besides, The Museum at FIT boasts in its archives several designs by Halston, while the Gladys Marcus Library at FIT houses the Halston collections (including fashion designs, sketches, photographs and over 400 scanned sketches of his hat designs).
Winners of the competition will be revealed in April to coincide with an event celebrating what would have been the late designer's 90th birthday. Halston was a visionary, and his patterns were actually works of art, so let's hope that some of the students taking part in the challenge will focus on creating innovative Ultrasuede designs based on clever patterns.
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