Roy Halston Frowick (Halston) began his fashion career as a milliner, eventually working for Bergdorf Goodman, where he rose to fame when he designed the pillbox hat Jacqueline Kennedy wore to her husband’s 1961 Presidential Inauguration. After hats fell out of fashion, Halston began designing women’s wear. He also designed costumes for stage and film and was an uncredited costume designer for Liza Minnelli in 1972’s “Cabaret”. He also designed her wardrobe for the Broadway Production of “The Act.”
In 1973 Lauren Bacall chose twelve of his gowns to wear in the televised version of
“Applause.”
In 1975, Halston began designing costumes for the Martha Graham Ballet Company which she founded in 1927 and is still in existence today.
1977 was a very busy year for Halston. He created new flight attendant uniforms for Braniff International Airways. Also in 1977, he designed costumes for a revival of “Hello, Dolly” starring Carol Channing.
Halston had a long
Halston moved to the Bay Area in California to be near his family as his health began failing. He died in 1990 of AIDS-related cancer with his family around him.
Sewing patterns by Halston are so popular that everytime I was ready to publish this, I would check and the patterns were sold. Here are a few that at the time of publication were available.
McCall’s 6841 and several other Halston Sewing Patterns are available at OldPatterns.com
Love the designs he made for Liza!
Amazingly, he also designed uniforms for Girl Scout leaders (they look quite a bit like the Braniff uniforms); they were apparently not very popular!
--Sherri from Sew Betty and Dot