8/24/2023 0 Comments Halston ewan mcgregorIt’s very pointed how often people in Halston say “Halston,” but it’s also close to parody.īut Halston isn’t parody, nor is it exactly camp. I’m not exaggerating when I say that the better part of two solid episodes alternates between Halston doing coke and various characters - principally Bill Pullman’s David Mahoney, David Pittu’s Joe Eula or Rebecca Dayan’s Elsa Peretti - telling Halston he’s doing so much cocaine that it’s keeping him from being Halston. Mostly, though, Halston being Halston is reduced to Halston being told in declarative sentences that he’s Halston Halston explaining to people in florid terms that he’s Halston and the occasional musical montage interspersed with cocaine snorting. There are bursts in which the writing, but mostly really Minahan’s direction, is able to zero in on parts of Halston’s process, peaking in a fifth-episode collaboration with Martha Graham that was the only time in the series I felt an iota of emotion. For a show obsessed with the idea of Halston’s brand, this miniseries couldn’t have less to say about how his identity was shaped, preferring to present the designer as a compilation of clichés instead of intriguingly enigmatic. We get a sketch of Halston as a lonely boy fixated on his mother and terrified by an abusive father that would be reductive whether or not you knew that Halston had a group of siblings who have been shepherding his legacy since his death, and - in addition to having no participation here - have been completely erased. The whole show could have been built around this moment and these flashbacks, but despite using Steven Gaines’ Simply Halston as source material, Halston has neither insight nor curiosity into Halston’s Midwestern upbringing. This is a great idea, since Halston’s perfume was among his greatest financial successes and because Farmiga, accent aside, is many times more compelling than most of the show’s guest stars. ![]() Or take Halston’s encounter with a sensualist parfumier (Vera Farmiga with an amusingly hammy accent), whose efforts to help the designer make his signature fragrance provoke a series of flashbacks. It’s been featured in several documentaries and it’s ideal kibble for an entire installment of Murphy’s Feud, but the second Halston episode, despite featuring the great Kelly Bishop as fashion publicist Eleanor Lambert, runs out of interest in less than 44 minutes. Take, for example, 1973’s Battle of Versailles, in which an all-star crew of French designers faced off against an American design dream team in a series of fashion shows to raise money for the restoration of the Palace of Versailles. Over five episodes, the series is littered with incidents that seem like they could be focal events if only Halston had focus, or structuring devices if only the show had structure. From there, it’s a predictable descent into corporate betrayals, personal betrayals and all imaginable forms of ’80s excess, including cocaine, promiscuous sex, cocaine, carousing at Studio 54, cocaine, egomaniacal temper tantrums and cocaine. Like a public speaker who slips down the steps while carrying his next lecture on notecards, leaving some cards out of order and others lost in the stairwell, Halston picks and chooses key moments in Roy Halston Frowick’s ( Ewan McGregor) journey from chapeau-loving Indiana child to the creator of such innovations as Jackie Kennedy’s pillbox hat ultrasuede every outfit Liza Minnelli (Krysta Rodriguez) ever wore and, of course, Halston-branded carpeting. The series traces - actually, it doesn’t trace anything. ![]() ![]() 'Halston' Costume Designer on Finding the
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