The Women Who Would Be Halston
WHEN New York Fashion Week begins on Thursday, more than 250 design companies will be showing at the pitched white tents at Lincoln Center and points beyond. But the once-storied house of Halston will not be among them.
Now presided over by the chief executive Ben Malka — until recently the president of the solidly middlebrow brand BCBG — Halston is expected to announce a new creative director, Marie Mazelis (also late of BCBG), to lead it.
It’s safe to say that expectations aren’t high, after a series of ill-fated corporate maneuvers that began even before Halston himself died of complications from AIDS in 1990. Since then, the rights to license and make Halston products have been bought and sold five times, and seven fashion designers, as well as creative advisers including the stylist Rachel Zoe and the actress Sarah Jessica Parker, have failed to breathe new life into the company.
“Everyone is looking for someone to save it,” said Mr. Malka, who Halston executives have said has invested more than $20 million of his own money into the enterprise, in a recent interview. But so far, no one has succeeded the way Alber Elbaz transformed the once-moribund Lanvin when he took over in 2001, or the way Tom Ford reinvigorated Gucci in the 1990s.
The most recent attempt to make over Halston, somewhat improbably masterminded by the movie mogul Harvey Weinstein in 2007, didn’t so much as flame out as fade away, with the news of Ms. Parker’s exodus buried in the August issue of Vogue and Mr. Weinstein telling The Daily Beast last month that he and Ms. Parker, whose movies he has produced, “have better things to do” with their time.
“Everyone is better off,” Mr. Weinstein told The New York Times from Paris, on vacation with his family.
Everyone, that is, except Halston, whose once-dominant name in fashion is threatened with obscurity — even as other designers, most notably Mr. Ford and Michael Kors, thrive with looks that often hark back to Halston’s glam, minimalist aesthetic.
ROY HALSTON FROWICK was born in Des Moines in 1932 and moved to Manhattan in 1957. He began as a milliner, designing the pillbox hat for Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. Within a decade, he opened a successful boutique at Bergdorf Goodman, evolving with the era to create slinky pantsuits and Ultrasuede shirtdresses.
He also became known for raucous gatherings at his 63rd Street townhouse and Studio 54 with Andy Warhol and Liza Minnelli, who reveled in the showman’s flair. “He made women feel glamorous,” Ms. Minnelli said recently, gushing over how he used to send her a new pair of tailored black velvet trousers every three months. “He took the American look and made it high fashion.”
Long before Isaac Mizrahi went mass market at Target, Halston cashed in on his famous name, cutting a deal with J. C. Penney in 1983 to sell cut-rate clothes. But the association cost him dearly: Bergdorf dropped him, and the average Jane didn’t seem too enthused, either. “I’m not sure he was appreciated and understood by Middle America,” said Fern Mallis, a fashion consultant.
In 1996, the New York clothing manufacturer Tropictex International bought Halston’s licenses (except for the fragrance business), investing about $30 million and hiring Randolph Duke, a former design director at Henri Bendel. “I became a designer because of Halston,” said Mr. Duke, who now sells dresses on the Home Shopping Network Web site. “He was the first superstar designer of the American gamine — a designer bigger than life.”
Mr. Duke showed his first collection, to some critical fanfare, in fall 1997 and, at the 1998 Oscars, sheathed the actress Minnie Driver in a sultry crimson gown. But fabric bills were not being paid on time, Mr. Duke said. He quit after the brand was sold to a private equity fund, which in turn sold it in 1999 to a small men’s clothing manufacturer, Neema Clothing, owned by a former Burlington Industries executive, James J. Ammeen.
In an interview, Mr. Ammeen said he terminated most of the outstanding licensing agreements and sought to reestablish Halston as a luxury brand by limiting it to one or two high-end retail stores. In 2002, he brought in Bradley Bayou, a Los Angeles-based designer with a celebrity clientele. Mr. Bayou created a couture brand called Bradley Bayou for Halston and dressed Queen Latifah and Oprah. But when Mr. Bayou said he wanted more money for advertising, Mr. Ammeen declined. “It was not the right moment,” he said. In 2005, Mr. Bayou said he left the company out of frustration.
“I feel like I let him down, and he’s rolling over in his grave,” Mr. Bayou (who now sells his own line of moderately priced clothes on QVC) said of Halston, adding that he believed the brand had “been managed by the wrong people.”
IN late 2005, Tamara Mellon, a founder of the shoemaker Jimmy Choo, approached Mr. Weinstein and Ms. Zoe about buying Halston. “She said she couldn’t imagine doing it without me,” said Ms. Zoe, who owns at least 50 vintage Halston pieces and has also referenced the designer’s louche looks in her work. Mr. Weinstein, Ms. Mellon and Ms. Zoe met with Mr. Ammeen at the Carlyle Hotel in May 2006. But the movie producer didn’t resurface until six months later — this time with a financial partner, Hilco Consumer Capital, a division of Hilco Trading based in Northbrook, Ill.
On Feb. 4, 2008, Mr. Zanini made his Halston debut at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea. The couture show organized by Ms. Takhar was spare yet elegant. Ms. Mellon showed up with her beau, the actor Christian Slater. And Mr. Weinstein brought Ms. Minnelli, looking svelte in a vintage red Halston pantsuit. “I went for friendship and curiosity,” Ms. Minnelli said. (Ms. Zoe was conspicuously absent.)
Ms. Mallis, who knows both Mr. Ford and Ms. Parker, said the comparison was poor. “No matter what, Tom Ford is a designer,” she said. Of Ms. Parker, she added, fashion “clearly was not her basic training even though she has an extraordinary sense of personal style.”
Mr. Schwab, the designer who replaced Mr. Zanini in 2009, showed his fall 2011 collection for Halston in February at a warehouse in Chelsea. Models wearing casually draped dresses, some made with glow-in-the-dark material, stood on individual platforms in the center of the room, while attendees milled around, listening to Donna Summer. Critics were not impressed. According to company executives, Mr. Schwab’s contract was not renewed after he declined to move to New York.
“I think he was wrong for our brand,” Mr. Weinstein said. (Mr. Zanini is now the creative director of Rochas.)
The question continued to rankle: Who was right for Halston?
Mr. Hecktman, unbowed, said he began exploring other options for the company last spring, including additional financing or a possible sale. While the Halston Heritage line showed promise, the couture line was losing money. (The total amount invested in Halston, Mr. Hecktman said, was more than $70 million.) Mr. Weinstein said Ms. Parker hadn’t been paid for a year, a claim disputed by Halston’s spokeswoman, Lynn Tesoro.
It was then that Mr. Malka surfaced as a replacement for Ms. Takhar, Mr. Weinstein said. Mr. Malka was known as an adept licensing executive, and Hilco had wanted to exploit Halston’s licensing opportunities. “It was a different game plan,” Mr. Weinstein said. “It wasn’t what we wanted to do.”
He and Ms. Parker began negotiating their exit packages. Mr. Weinstein would get a small sum for his share, and Ms. Parker got a settlement of more than $2 million, according to a person affiliated with Halston, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. Tamara Mellon, who had originally brought the idea to Mr. Weinstein, also resigned. In a recent statement, Ms. Parker said of her work at Halston, “It was an invaluable experience, and I’m enormously grateful for the opportunity.”
In July, Hilco invested another $7.5 million into the Halston brand. Mr. Hecktman said the company was committed to the couture and Halston Heritage lines. While grateful to Mr. Weinstein and Ms. Parker, Mr. Hecktman sounded ready to leave the days of celebrity behind. “Everything is a lot of noise, and I understand noise sells,” Mr. Hecktman said. But, he added, “this business is not about Harvey Weinstein. Harvey is not the brand. Sarah Jessica Parker is not the brand. I invested in Halston, and everything else is additive.”
Mr. Malka echoed the company’s new, lower-key approach. “I want this brand not to be about me,” he said. “This brand isn’t about anyone’s ego. It’s about Halston.”
Just what that means remains open to interpretation.
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