Roy Halston Frowick

Roy Halston Frowick

Roy Halston Frowick, better known as Halston, was an Iowa native who was born in 1932. His most famous designs were fluid, silky, and sexy – they became a symbol of 1970’s disco culture, with all of its freedom and decadence.

His interest in sewing and fashion started at an early age; as a young boy, he tailored clothes and created hats for his mother and sisters to wear. After graduating from high school, Frowick went to University in Indiana, but he lasted only one semester. Dropping out of University led him to a more creative life: he took night school courses at an art institute in Chicago and began to work as a window-dresser.

The hats Roy Frowick created in his spare time became his entrée into the world of high fashion. After garnering some publicity for his designs in a Chicago newspaper, he was able to open his first boutique in 1957. Around this time, he dropped his first and last names, opting for a more glamorous moniker that has became synonymous with American glamour…Halston.

Moving to the Big Apple was the next stage in the rapid career ascent of Halston; a stint working as a co-designer with lauded milliner Lilly Dache led to a gig at tony Bergdorf Goodman, where he became the house designer of fashionable hats.

Halston’s association with Jackie Kennedy was a crucial factor in his rising fame; she generally eschewed hats until she became charmed by Halston’s distinctive pillbox styles during the Sixties. She wore one of his designs to the Presidential Inauguration in 1961; she was also wearing a pillbox hat (in pink) on the day her husband, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated.

In the Seventies, Halston befriended (and dressed) members of the international jet set, including Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli, and Liz Taylor. Dressed in his trademark black turtleneck, he could often be found partying at Studio 54 and enjoying his success with a host of celebrity friends. Licensing deals made him very wealthy, but tragedy lay in the distance…drug addiction and an AIDS diagnosis in 1988 led to his downfall. Unable to cope with the demands of his career, he was fired from his own company…Halston died of AIDS-related complications in 1990.