ML - Michigan Avenue

2015 - Issue 5 - September

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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photography by getty images Halston (right) with model Pat Cleveland at a party following the 1972 Coty Awards in New York. Halston was his name. He set Chicago's fashion scene alight in the 1960s with his spectacular hats and was soon christened by Newsweek as "the best designer in America." But before the wildfire fame, he was Roy Frowick, a boy born in Iowa in 1932, trying to make his way at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Fashion columnist Peg Zwecker put him on the map with an article in the Chicago Daily News in 1956. "She met him when he was making hats with André Basil at the Ambassador East," says Peg's son Bill, veteran entertainment col- umnist for the Sun-Times and reporter for Fox Chicago News. "Chicago is a big small town, and he made quite an impact on the social crowd." It was also Zwecker's mother who suggested the designer go by his more elegant middle name of Halston and paved his way to global stardom by pro- viding an introduction to Lilly Daché, a French milliner operating in New York City. This was a time before bouffants, when hats were de rigueur for women no matter their station. "He was extraordinarily good-looking, very personable, and he wanted to make his ladies feel good," says fashion scholar Nena Ivon, who spent more than 50 years with Saks on North Michigan Avenue. Like so many other promising young creatives, Halston eventually decamped Chicago for the world's stage of New York and became an immedi- ate hit with the likes of Liza Minnelli, Elizabeth Taylor, and even Jackie Kennedy, for whom he created the pillbox hat she wore at her husband's inau- guration. His talents transcended millinery, and he pioneered the ultrasuede dresses that defined the '70s. "They didn't wrinkle; you looked crisp all the time," says philanthropist and socialite Hazel Barr. "His impact was enor- mous. His name was on everybody's lips." Halston's star faded toward the end of his career (a multimillion-dollar deal with J.C. Penney was widely panned), but a quarter-century after his 1990 death at age 57, his legacy as one of Chicago's most fabulous fashion designers shines ever more brightly. MA ChiCago's Fashion TiTan In 1957, a young desIgner named Halston opened hIs fIrst shop on north mIchIgan avenue, launchIng hImself on a path to InternatIonal fashIon stardom. by seth putnam 14  michiganavemag.com FRONT RUNNER

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