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Will 6 Be a Lucky Number for Halston?
Lenox Fontaine for The New York Times
NEXT STOP, THE RUNWAY Marco Zanini, the latest designer to put his name behind Halston, photographing a model wearing his cashmere T-shirt dress.
By CATHY HORYN
Published: February 3, 2008
NEVER have so many people gone to a mountain. Tomorrow, at the Gagosian Gallery in Chelsea, Marco Zanini will present his first collection for Halston. Mr. Zanini, 35, is the sixth designer to put his name behind Halston, which has had at least eight owners in the 25 years since Roy Halston Frowick sold his own name to Norton Simon. That’s a lot of believers.
Presumably the previous owners, which include Beatrice, Revlon and Borghese, were well intentioned; presumably the other designers, beginning with John David Ridge and running through Randolph Duke and Bradley Bayou, were in some way talented.
But millions and millions of dollars went down the drain anyway. Offices were rented and refurbished. Publicists called editors, and editors wrote articles and dug out photos of Halston in his white-raincoat-and-black-turtleneck phase, the photos serving as talismans or warnings — oh, what did it matter? Sooner or later someone decided that Halston the label was too much trouble, and another set of lawyers and accountants was called to undo everything.
In 1993, just three years after Halston’s death, in California, Amy Spindler of The New York Times conveyed the hope and cynicism in seeing the label revived. She said it was “the fashion equivalent of reuniting the Beatles.”
Halston has new owners, the Weinstein Company and Hilco Consumer Capital, a private-equity fund, which paid most of the estimated $22 million purchase price. Tamara Mellon is also an owner. It was Ms. Mellon, the founder of Jimmy Choo, who thought that Halston could be revived, and with care eventually make people money. She shared her ideas with the stylist Rachel Zoe and Harvey Weinstein, the movie producer. Mr. Weinstein, the most visible if unlikely figure in the group, got involved in part because he had exposure to the fashion world through his wife, Georgina Chapman, a designer of Marchesa.
In any case, these individuals may be the most motivated owners that Halston has had. Ms. Mellon can draw on her Jimmy Choo success. Mr. Weinstein can span the worlds of entertainment and fashion; he wants to make a Halston documentary. And Ms. Zoe, a member of the Halston advisory board, can use her Hollywood contacts to get the clothes worn and photographed.
Not bad; but what about the goods?
Is Marco Zanini — not to be confused with Marco Zanini, the furniture designer — finally the one? Maybe.
Though many designers have dipped into Halston’s well — few more effectively than Tom Ford in 1996 at Gucci — none of Halston’s appointed heirs have been able to create a look that resonates with contemporary audiences. It’s one of the great fashion paradoxes. Everybody knows the Look — the supersimple blouse and skirt, the flow of a one-seam evening dress, the chic of a shirtdress — but nobody can actually do it under the trademark. To some extent, the blame rests on poor management. But it also may be true that some of the previous designers at Halston didn’t know what they were doing.
Mr. Zanini comes from Versace, where he spent eight years as Donatella Versace’s chief assistant. Before that, he worked for Dolce & Gabbana and Lawrence Steele. Ms. Mellon first learned of Mr. Zanini last spring from Hamish Bowles, a Vogue editor, during a cocktail party, and she got in touch with him. After showing Ms. Mellon and Bonnie Takhar, the company’s new chief executive, sketches of his ideas for Halston, accompanied by an old Lou Reed song, Mr. Zanini got the job. There were no close seconds, Ms. Takhar said.
Last week, Mr. Zanini, wearing jeans and a rumpled white shirt with many leather bands on his wrist, was in the Halston offices on Spring Street, preparing the 30 looks he will show. The clothes are made in Italy, of Italian wools, cashmeres and jersey, as well as French silk, and Mr. Zanini has been commuting back and forth since September. A native of Milan, he comes across as mature and direct, with a light laugh and studious features exaggerated by dark-frame glasses and cutlet sideburns.
Mr. Zanini is as versed as the next designer in the style of Halston. And maybe for that reason he knows the facile tricks of postmodernism, like leaving the edges of a dress raw, and avoids them. “With this collection, I’ve tried not to over-design,” he said, adding that he wanted simple, well-made clothes that connect with Halston’s approach in the early 1970s, when a lot of his things were made on the bias and with relatively few cuts.
“I like his effect of stripping down and stripping down a garment of anything that isn’t necessary without it becoming boring,” Mr. Zanini said.
He didn’t look at the designs of his Halston predecessors. “I remember a couple of things but, no,” he said. “Altogether it was a bad cocktail.” And though he looked at some Halston dresses in a museum collection, he says he absorbed enough over the years from photographs. “Another thing I learned at Versace is the risk of looking at archives,” Mr. Zanini said. “It’s a treasure for a company, but to a designer, it’s kind of your enemy.”
Considering the personalities involved in Halston, some interference might be inevitable. But Mr. Zanini said he was told at the outset he would have complete creative control. Aside from Ms. Mellon, who lives in London, Ms. Takhar is the only executive who has seen the collection. Mr. Zanini said he had seen Mr. Weinstein twice in the last six months, though they’ve exchanged some text messages. Ms. Zoe has kept her distance, too.
Two thirds of the collection is day wear. There is not a drop of embroidery anywhere, and Mr. Zanini has limited fur to a long Russian sable vest and an extra-long muffler. He uses the palette as much as the high-quality fabrics, including satin crepe and cashmere blended with chinchilla, to make a coherent statement. There is burnt orange, petrol blue, mauve, cream and gray with a hint of purple. They all work together.
Silk crepe blouses come in wrap and tailored styles, and each will be sold with a matching crepe bra, so you can look unbuttoned. Cashmere coats are unlined and draping, some with a sausage drawstring belt.
“I’ve never liked to conceptualize too much about fashion, like it was art or science, which it is not,” Mr. Zanini said, looking at the smoothly finished seams of a cashmere coat. “But it’s nice when there’s a clear idea behind a collection.”
He has at least done that. The clothes are simple and sophisticated, a daring combination these days. This is a designer who doesn’t merely know Halston, but he also knows the tricks — and isn’t playing. The question is whether he has created a look as ineffably cool as Halston in its prime.
AS a business, Halston also seems stripped down, a reversal of many luxury brand start-ups, which tend to be stuck in the old grand ways. In a farsighted move, Halston will be the first high-end label to have clothes available immediately to consumers after the show. Net-a-porter, the online retailer, will offer two runway styles on Tuesday, with same-day delivery available in New York and London.
Ms. Takhar said the plan was to increase sales slowly, with the line in 50 retail outlets around the world this year, and to wait on advertising. (Here, Mr. Weinstein’s and Ms. Zoe’s contacts in Hollywood will create publicity.) Prices are in the range of Yves Saint Laurent and Lanvin, with day dresses around $1,500 and average prices for evening dresses at $4,000. There will be 30 shoe styles, and 20 handbag styles.
No one likes to believe in Halston more than a retailer does. Jim Gold, the chief executive of Bergdorf Goodman, has not seen the clothes yet, but he has been impressed with the people involved. He doubts that consumers have lost interest in an American design name. As he said: “All of the activity that has been post-Halston is irrelevant to my mind. This is a fairly clean slate.”
