“Halston”, the Netflix series about the haute couture icon: the devil wears fashion

Sex, drugs and haute couture: Ryan Murphy ( Glee , American Horror Story ) gets behind Halston , the new Netflix production that recreates the rise and fall of Roy Halston Frowick (Ewan McGregor), known by the world, in five brilliant episodes like Halston.

An avant-garde dressmaker in New York in the second half of the 20th century, Halston went from being a provincial kid from Indiana inventing hats for his long-suffering mother to rubbing shoulders with the high society of the day as a result of his talent for design. Liza Minnelli (Krysta Rodriguez) and Elsa Peretti (Rebecca Dayan) were some of his most celebrated muses, labeled the “Halsonettes,” who showcased his loose, synthetic, minimalist garments.

Directed by Daniel Minahan and based on the book Simply Halston , by Steven Gaines, Halston also emphasizes the excesses of the character, who frequented the cocaine addict Studio 54 in the disco era and surrounded himself with prostitutes and eccentric lovers such as the Venezuelan artist Victor Hugo (Gian Franco Rodríguez), close to Andy Warhol. Halston's vital curve begins to slope when he sells his well-known brand, a millionaire arrangement that leaves him at the mercy of corporate management, and ends with his death at the early age of 57 in 1990 due to AIDS.

In its course, the strip shows the glamorous catwalk adventures of the great fashion designer, capable of reproducing the effervescent spirit of the times with his sophisticated creations in a sagacious and self-destructive frequentation of diverse strata of New York society.

Minahan points out that Halston was, in his way, the first influencer, a megalomaniac who made his last name a glamorous imperative by dint of being on everyone's lips and recording each of his acts. His contribution was to intersect the modern and the massive through an exclusive family. “Until then people didn't want to be seen at a party in the same dress. That would have been embarrassing. Until Halston came along with his 704 Ultrasuede and everyone wanted it. He created the idea of ​​the status garment," Minahan told Elle .

The director and producer had been wanting to finalize this project with his partner Christine Vachon for more than 20 years, and it was the complementary interest of Murphy – who had known the script since its first version – that made it possible. “I grew up in Indiana surrounded by churches and cornfields, and I always knew of two people who had made it out of there to become big, glamorous figures: one was Florence Henderson, and the other was Halston. He was someone very present in my mind, the representation of the person who emerges from humble beginnings and does something incredible with his life. He always inspired me,” Murphy told Vogue .

“His was the world I wanted to be in. I grew up with colonial furniture from Sears, but I kept an eye on what Halston was doing. He preached a way of life and it was interesting to me because his environment was super controlled and his creativity was chaotic at the same time. The mixture of both things made it fascinating”, he continues.

And completes: “Halston used drugs and sex as releases of pressure, creation and worry about the lights out, and we made sure to dramatize those issues. Many creatives get burned out by sex, drugs or alcohol because of the pressure. We wanted to be careful in representing his creative experience. One of the striking aspects was that his only great love story was with Victor Hugo. He speculated about going any further in the relationship until Victor made it clear to him that it wouldn't happen. From there, Halston became an uncontrolled celebrity for whom everything and everyone was at his beck and call. Nothing good could come of it."

life of the party

Divided between the news in which he poses as Halston and those that disclose his return as Obi-Wan Kenobi for the Disney + series of the same name, McGregor is going through a period moved by the pandemic. The Scotsman was practically unaware of the trail of his Netflix character, for whose interpretation he learned to sew and had a confidential dialogue with Liza Minnelli.

The recent accusations of playing gay while being heterosexual made by actor and singer Billy Porter ( Pose ) – in addition to the Halston family's complaints about the lack of rigor of the narration – do not make a dent in McGregor, the true heart of the streaming miniseries.

“I don't know why I didn't know about this man who was so thunderously famous at the time that he left his mark on American culture in general, not just fashion. He changed everything," the 50-year-old actor told Deadline . And he concluded: “I was fascinated by the complexity of his life, his dealing with fame and addiction. There were a lot of aspects of his personality that were extraordinary for me to play, and I wasn't wrong. He was a wonderful personality to learn about.”

To see

All five episodes of Halston are available on Netflix.