One-of-a-Kind Garment

China Machado, original photographs from cover shoot for Harper’s Bazaar. Photos by Bill King

 
 

Harper’s Bazaar cover, April 1971 issue

 
 

Tie-dyed suede shirt by Halston, 1971

 
 

The earliest surviving examples of Pre-Columbian tie-dye in Peru date from 500 to 810 AD. Their designs include small circles and lines, with bright colors including red, yellow, blue, and green.

Tie-dye is a modern term coined in the mid-1960s in the United States for a set of ancient resist-dyeing techniques, and for the products of these processes. The process of tie-dye typically consists of folding, twisting, pleating, or crumpling fabric or a garment and binding with string or rubber bands, followed by application of dye(s). The manipulations of the fabric prior to application of dye are called resists, as they partially or completely prevent the applied dye from coloring the fabric. More sophisticated tie-dyes involve additional steps, including an initial application of dye prior to the resist, multiple sequential dye and resist steps, and the use of other types of resists (stitching, stencils) and discharge.

Tie-dyeing was known in the US by 1909, when Professor Charles E. Pellow of Columbia University acquired some samples of tie-dyed muslin and subsequently gave a lecture and live demonstration of the technique.

Although shibori and batik techniques were used occasionally in Western fashion before the 1960s, modern psychedelic tie-dying did not become a fad until the late 1960s following the example set by rock stars such as Janis Joplin and John Sebastian (who did his own dyeing).

Tie-dying, particularly after the introduction of affordable Rit dyes, became popular as a cheap and accessible way to customize inexpensive T-shirts, singlets, dresses, jeans, army surplus clothing, and other garments into psychedelic creations. Some of the leading names in tie-dye at this time were Water Baby Dye Works (run by Ann Thomas and Maureen Mubeem), Bert Bliss, and Up Tied, the latter winning a Coty Award for “major creativity in fabrics” in 1970. Up Tied created tie-dyed velvets and silk chiffons which were used for exclusive one-of-a-kind garments by Halston, Donald Brooks, and Gayle Kirkpatrick, whilst another tie-dyer, Smooth Tooth Inc. dyed garments for Dior and Jonathan Logan.

The Madcap Maestro of American Haute Couture

Portrait of Isaac Mizrahi by Annie Leibovitz. Published in Vogue, December 1995

 
 

Isaac Mizrahi was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1961, of Syrian Jewish heritage. He is the cousin of rock guitarist Sylvain Sylvain, former player in the New York Dolls.

When Isaac was eight, his family moved to the middle-class Midwood section of Brooklyn. He contracted spinal meningitis during this time and his confinement was spent eating junk food and viewing television, especially old movies. The 1961 remake of Back Street, about an affair between a fashion designer and a married man, was a pivotal event in Mizrahi’s development. The glamour of the fashion industry depicted in the movie became an inspiration to him to design clothes.

Around 1971, young Isaac steals money from his mother to buy fabric and trimmings. At eleven, he saves up babysitting money and purchases his first sewing machine—a secondhand Singer from the 1920s—and begins stitching clothes for his puppets. He later says, “I felt like a total outcast. I used to sit and make these puppets and watch a lot of television and a lot of movies on television. My mother was really worried about me. Everybody was worried about me.”

After struggling to fit in at Yeshiva of Flatbush, an Orthodox Jewish private school (where he is caught sketching fashions in his prayer books and doing rabbi impersonations), Isaac transfers to New York’s High School of Performing Arts. “It was a setting free,” he will later say. Dabbles in acting. October: At Isaac’s bar mitzvah—to which he wears “sky-blue shantung” —his father presents him with a pair of scissors engraved with his name.At 13, Isaac was designing clothes for himself, his mother, and a close friend of his mother, Sarah Haddad.

Isaac makes an appearance as Touchstone in the singing-and-dancing-teens film Fame (Alan Parker, 1980), based on the competitive atmosphere at his performing-arts alma mater.

His earliest design influences stemmed from his his mother’s all-American wardrobe, which included clothing from Halston, Geoffrey Beene, Claire McCardell and Norman Norell.

1982 Graduated from Parsons School of Design, New York. Among his fellow students is Marc Jacobs, two years his junior. “At Parsons, everyone thought he was incredibly talented,” Jacobs later recalls.

Worked for Perry Ellis, and said he was a major influence who taught him how to cut a dress, and many lessons in life. After this, he worked with Jeff Banks and Calvin Klein.

After leaving Calvin Klein, in June 1987 he and Sarah Haddad-Cheney pooled $50,000 each and opened Mizrahi’s own womenswear company. They occupied a loft on Greene Street in SoHo. Seven stores bought the first season’s collection. By the first collection show in April 1988 Haddad-Cheney had secured additional financing from the owners of Gitano Jeans company. In 1990 the company’s workrooms and showroom moved to an expanded space on Wooster Street. Mizrahi’s menswear collection premiered in April 1990.

1990 Isaac Mizrahi is presented with the CFDA designer of the year award for his women’s wear collection.
The year 1997 proved to be a milestone in Mizrahi’s career. He announced an unprecedented deal with three major Asian markets in Japan, Singapore, and Korea which included freestanding stores, in-store shops, wholesale distribution, manufacturing, and sublicenses in Japan and shops and distribution in Southeast Asia, an online ABC source reported. The deal was estimated to generate at least $150 million in retail sales by the year 2000.

Mizrahi has made appearances in numerous television shows and movies since the 1990s. In 1995, a movie was released about the development of his Fall 1994 collection called Unzipped made by his freind Douglas Keeve. In fall 2005 the Isaac show debuted on Style Network. He previously had a show on the Oxygen network. His new less-expensive line ISAAC, opens in 34 locations around the USA. Each boutique will show his new logo, a Silver Star.

He often appears on many of E!’s programs and has become well-known for being flamboyant and considered by some to be rude. He also appeared as himself in the episode “Plus One is the Loneliest Number” of the fifth season of Sex and the City.
He also guest starred on the American dramedy series Ugly Betty (based on Fernando Gaitán‘s Colombian telenovela soap opera Yo soy Betty, la fea), in which he played a reporter for the cable channel Fashion TV in the episode “Lose the Boss“.

Mizrahi also appeared as himself in The Apprentice season 1 (episode 6) as one of the celebrities auction for The Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation.

He made a series of comic books called Sandee, the Adventures of a Supermodel, published by Simon & Schuster.
Mizrahi is currently the spokesperson for Klein-Becker’s StriVectin anti-wrinkle cream.

He is developing “The Collection,” a one-hour scripted project that draws on the experiences of the designer for The CW Network.

Known for his magnetic personality and witty style, Mizrahi has won four Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) awards. He is famous for his use of colour and the clean flattering lines of his designs. Chanel, who was financing him, pulled the plug and Isaac had closed his own fashion house in 1998. He started his own TV show interviewing celebrities.

However in February 2003, Mizrahi entered into a new partnership with New York based Hip retailer TARGET. Isaac created an exclusive collection of classically designed fashion sportswear and accessories for style conscious women. The collections are named “Isaac Mizrahi for Target” and he unveiled his debut collection in April 2003 in Minneapolis at the Walker Arts Center. Target is putting the designer back on the fashion map in a major mass-market way.

When he was interviewed, Isaac said he was very happy working with Target. Certain aspects of the couture scene and the constant rush to try and make money, just made him unhappy. Now he is making clothes for ordinary Americans at reasonable prices, and they are “racy, fun and crazy” and very popular.

But Isaac’s heart has always been with fashion shows, and in June 2004 he put on his first show in six years, and it was really successful. The show celebrates Bergdorf Goodman’s decision to devote space in its American couture collections for Mizrahi’s label.

V.I.P.’s (Very Important Portraits) by Roxanne Lowit

Roxanne Lowit is one of the pioneers of behind-the-scenes fashion photography as we know it today. “For the first 10 to 15 years I was the only one shooting backstage at all the shows. I had no credentials to begin with but quickly realised that that was my métier, that’s what I found most fascinating.”

The revelation came when she was gifted an Instamatic camera while still attending the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York studying Textile Design. At the time Lowit was a keen painter, but with this new tool discovered a more efficient way of capturing the spirit of her subjects. “I wanted to paint the people I admired but nobody had the time, so I thought I’d take a photograph of them and work from the photograph,” she says. “However, once I took the photograph I realised that I didn’t need to capture the whole soul in a painting. So I traded in my paintbrushes for a camera.”

Her background in textile design became her backstage pass when she was invited by the designers who worked from her patterns to photograph the completed garments before their shows. Eventually word got out that Lowit’s images were something worth publishing, and in 1978 she was contacted by Annie Flanders from the SoHo News. “She heard that I was going to Paris so she said ‘if you get a real camera I’ll use your pictures when you get back’. I learnt how to put film in a real camera on the plane on the way over. Next thing I was on the top of the Eiffel Tower shooting with Yves Saint Laurent and Andy Warhol. It was all downhill from there because how could it get any better?”

But things did get better, much better. After that first trip to Paris doors flung open for Lowit and her career as a backstage fashion photographer gained swift momentum. As industry insiders came to know and love her, the invitations to the parties flooded in, which was where much of the magic happened in front of Lowit’s lens. The 80s were heady times for fashion and she was always there, stationed in the fray, ready to catch the fanfare, frivolities and outright excess as it happened. “It was phenomenal,” she recalls. “We had the Supermodels and all those designers who loved the Supermodels. There were great parties – Elton John was always there and all sorts of celebrities started coming to the shows and parties.”

These days Lowit finds the more homogenised collections produced by contemporary designers as a result of an increasingly commercialised fashion industry much less inspiring, but revels in rising to the challenge all the same. “I usually play a game with myself, how good can I make this look?” she laughs. “But really it’s just about taking a great picture and finding a great moment. It’s always exciting to think, where am I going to go and what am I going to shoot next?”For the fashion designers themselves, as Lowit recalls, it was a time of tremendous creative freedom, where their unique artistic vision was nurtured by the industry and experimentation was encouraged. The shows, it seems, were less about selling clothes and more about the artistry, theatre and spectacle of it all. “It was so much more creative back then. You didn’t need a name at the end of the runway to know who it was you were watching,” she tells me. “When you saw long red nails with vampish clothes and great big hair you knew it was Thierry Mugler. When you saw flower dresses and a girl on a horse you knew you were at Kenzo. Stripes and knits, you were at Sonia Rykiel.”

Lowit gets a kick out of shooting just about anyone who gets a kick out of being shot. “All the pictures I’ve taken are important to me. They’re all like my children. It’s always the next image I look forward to. But looking back I think my favourites are the ones where the people just enjoyed having their picture taken – they were just having a good time. That’s really when I can capture something great.”

 
 

Roxanne Lowit, Andy Warhol, Jacqueline and Julian Schnabel, Kenny Scharf, Jean Michel Basquiat

 
 

Andy Warhol

 
 

Yves Saint Laurent

 
 

Yves Saint Laurent and Karl Lagerfeld

 
 

Helena Christensen, Karl Lagerfeld and Anna Wintour

 
 

Diana Vreeland

 
 

Ralph Lauren and Diana Vreeland

 
 

Salvador Dalí, Janet Daly and the recipient of a kiss

 
 

Helmut Newton

 
 

Richard Avedon, Irving Penn and Helmut Newton

 
 

Peter Lindbergh, Arthur Elgort and Patrick Demarchelier

 
 

Robert De Niro and Al Pacino

 
 

Patrick Kelly, Iman, Grace Jones and Naomi Campbell

 
 

Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington and Linda Evangelista

 
 

>Manolo Blahnik and Anna Piaggi

 
 

Lauren Hutton and a chauffeur

 
 

Elton John in concert wearing the Donald Duck costume, Central Park, New York

 
 

Shalom Harlow

 
 

Amanda Lepore

 
 

Halston

 
 

John Galliano

 
 

Annabelle Neilson Rothschild and John Galliano

 
 

Backstage from Dior Show, Paris

 
 

Kate Moss and John Galliano

 
 

Kate Moss

 
 

Ellen Von Unwerth and Mario Testino

 
 

Herb Ritts, Christy Turlington and Steven Meisel

An Ancient Emblem of Liberty

Jacqueline Kennedy en route to lunch with President and Mrs. Charles de Gaulle, Paris, May 31, 1961

 
 

Jacqueline Kennedy during her official visit to Paris, on May 1961. She was wearing Alaskine (wool and silk) created by Oleg Cassini and pill-box hat created by Roy Halston Frowick

 
 

Jacqueline Kennedy, First Lady of the United States from 1961 to 1963, was well known for her “signature pillbox hats” from circa 1961 to 1963

 
 

PREDECESSORS

 
 

Memorial Stained Glass window, Class of 1934, Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston Ontario, Canada

 
 

A pillbox hat is a small woman’s hat with a flat crown and straight, upright sides, and no brim. Historically, the pillbox hat was military headgear, often including a chin strap, and it can still be seen on ceremonial occasions in some countries, especially from those which are of the Commonwealth of Nations. For example, the Royal Military College of Canada dress uniform includes a pillbox hat.

 
 

Castor wearing a pileus-like helmet, detail from a scene representing the gathering of the Argonauts

 
 

Odysseus offering wine to the Cyclops. Ancient statue in the Vatican, Rome

 
 

During the late Roman Empire, the pillbox, then known as the pileus or “Pannonian cap” was worn by Roman soldiers. The pileus was especially associated with the manumission of slaves. who wore it upon their liberation. It became emblematic of liberty and freedom from bondage.

 
 

SUCCESOR

 
 

Reese Whiterspoon as Elle Woods on Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde (Charles Herman-Wurmfeld, 2003), sequel to the film, Legally Blonde (Robert Luketic, 2001). Costume design by Sophie de Rakoff

Special Request

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis at benefit, New York, 1976

 
 

Letter from Jacqueline K. Onassis to Halston, 1976. Collection: Andy Warhol Museum

Picked Flowers From Neighbor’s Yard

Acetate mechanical for 82-inch Flowers, 1964. Ink on acetate, handwritten ink on Bristol board, overall

 
 

Photo of hibiscus flowers by Modern Photography executive editor Patricia Caulfield, published in that magazine in 1964 where it was found and used by Andy Warhol

 
 

Warhol in a field of black-eyed Susans with an early Flowers canvas, Queens, New York, 1964. Photo: John William Kennedy

 
 

Warhol with his assistants Philip Fagan (left), and poet Gerard Malanga (right). At the Factory, 231 East 47th Street, New York, 1964.

 
 

Warhol working on a large Flower painting at the Factory, New York City, March 1965.

 
 

Andy Warhol, Flowers, 1964, acrylic and silkscreen on linen, 24 x 24 in. each (16 works shown).

 
 

At the 1964 New York World’s Art Fair, the architect Phillip Johnson commissioned 10 artists to make large-scale works to adorn the facade of the State Pavilion—a monument Johnson had designed as a celebration of human advancement. Robert Indiana, Roy Lichtenstein, James Rosenquist, and Robert Rauschenberg were among the Pop artists selected. Andy Warhol was another contributor. However, Warhol’s piece Thirteen Most Wanted Men, which depicted  silkscreened mug shots of real criminals, was censored—covered with silver paint, and never seen by the public.

Was this event the catalyst for Warhol’s transition from felons to florals? The flower, a symbol of fragility and purity, is antithetical to the blunt violence associated with the criminal. The art historian Michael Lobel eloquently explores this collision of themes in Warhol’s work in his essay Andy Warhol Flowers: a fitting accompaniment to the comprehensive survey of Warhols’ Flowers paintings.

Warhol’s flower paintings, created between 1964 and 1965, were initially inspired by a photograph of several hibiscus flowers taken by Patricia Caulfield, then the executive editor of Modern Photography magazine. The foldout article depicted how a new Kodak home color processing system could manipulate color. Warhol appropriated the image without permission, cropped, copied, enhanced the contrast, and eventually settled on a square format that meant the paintings could be viewed from any orientation. Caulfield, by-the-way, sued Warhol for copyright infringement and it was settled out of court. We get to see Caulfield’s original photograph that was printed in Modern Photography magazine along with many of Warhol’s variations on it in paint, silkscreen and collage on a wide range of materials. A collection of these paintings was the focus of Warhol’s first show at the prestigious Leo Castelli Gallery in late 1964, and signaled his ascension into the legitimized art world.

 
 

Dress designed by Halston, 1972

 
 

Diane Von Fürstenberg Spring Summer 2012 collection

Still-Life Polaroids

Still-life polaroids taken by Andy Warhol, from 1977 to 1983

 
 

Andy Warhol used photography as an integral part of his art making process. He referred to his Polaroid Big Shot camera, which he purchased in 1970, as his “pencil and paper.” The Polaroid prints, instantaneously tangible records of the transitory, served as subjects for Warhol’s drawings, silkscreens, and paintings.

Meticulous arrays of knives, and crosses contrast with jumbled assemblages of shoes and other commercial products, including Warhol’s iconic soup cans and Brillo boxes. Warhol often deploys multiplication and varying degrees of order to alter and enliven quotidian objects. In other compositions, such as a single gray human heart presented on a vibrant red plate, individual subjects in the picture frame gain potency in isolation. Recurrent themes of desire, consumption, and mortality run throughout. The rarity of these works, coupled with the dwindling production of Polaroid film, capturing the dual aspect of a specific time in both Warhol’s practice and the history of photography.

Halston Shoe Collections

Halston shoe collections. Photos: Andy Warhol, 1981

 
 

Shoe sketches and materials in Halston’s office. Photo: Andy Warhol, 1981

Artistic Ménage à Trois

Anjelica Huston and Halston. 1972

 
 

Halston’s Fall 1972 collection modeled by Anjelica Huston. All the photographs were taken by Berry Berenson

Fashion, Stars and Stripes

Photo credit: Hedi Slimane

 

John Varvatos’ scarf

 

Photo credit: Beau Grealy

 

Pumps designed by Charlotte Olympia

 

Ralph Lauren

 

 Illustration by Lauren’s long-time collaborator, Audrey Schilt

 

Tommy Hilfiger

 

Halston at Warhol’s Montauk, NY beach house

 

Orpheus Descending. Photo editorial by Nathaniel Goldberg

 

Marc Jacobs

 

Blake Lively

 

Michael Kors

 

John Galliano and models photographed by Simon Procter

 

Dress by Catherine Malandrino

 

Jacket Adidas by Jeremy Scott

Friendly Portraits

Billy Blair and Pat Cleveland

 
 

Maria Snyder

 
 

Paloma Picasso

 
 

Veruschka

 
 

Jane Forth

 
 

Susan Baraz

 
 

Tina Chow

 
 

Halston

 
 

Andy Warhol

Creative Circle of Friends

Clockwise from bottom: Antonio Lopez, Kathtleen, Ingeborg Marcus, Cathee Dahmen and friend, Charles James and Juan Ramos in 1966.

 
 

In Paris, with his circle of friends, 1974

 
 

Elle France, 1971

 
 

Margaux Hemingway, Halston, Liza Minelli, Andy Warhol and Ultra Violet. Snapshot by Antonio Lopez, New York, 1974

 
 

Yves Saint Laurent, Marina Schiano, Jerry Hall and Pierre Bergé. Snapshot by Antonio Lopez, 1977

 
 

Grace Coddington and Jerry Hall in Jamaica, 1975

 
 

With Anna Piaggi at Tina Chow wedding, 1972

 
 

Accompained by Jane Forth

Invitation for Lagerfeld

Eija Vehka Aho, Juan Ramos, Jacques de Bascher, Karl Lagerfeld and Antonio Lopez. In 1969 Antonio Lopez moved to Paris along with Juan Eugene Ramos (his partner in business and life) and was an associate of Karl Lagerfeld

 
 

Antonio, Lagerfedl and “Halstonette” Pat Cleveland in Paris, 1970

 
 

Invitation for Karl Lagerfeld, 1983

 
 

Karl Lagerfeld designs illustrated by Antonio

 
 

Karl Lagerfeld for Chloé, circa 1983

 
 

Karl Lagerfeld in a Mankini. Snapshot by Antonio Lopez

Halston’s Feminine Point of View

From left: Illustrator Joe Eula, Berry Berenson and Antonio Lopez. Photo: Pierre Scherman

 
 

Editorial feature in LIFE magazine. February, 1971. Photo: Berry Berenson

 
 

Editorial feature in Vogue. June 1972.  Photo: Berry Berenson

 
 

Model Karen Bjorson. Fall 1972 collection. June 29, 1972. Photo: Berry Berenson

 
 

Black silk Mao jacket. Original photograph from editorial feature in LIFE magazine. December 10, 1971. Photo: Berry Berenson

 
 

Cybill Sheperd in white satin pantsuit. LIFE magazine. December 10, 1971. Photo: Berry Berenson

 
 

Liza Minnelli in fron of Halston Ltd., 33 East 68th street, New York 1972.  Photo: Berry Berenson

Halston’s Green Dress

Self-portrait of Berry Berenson wearing a green silk jersey dress by Halston, 1971

 
 

Left: Same green silk jersey dress by Halston. Collection Museum of the City of New York. Right: Model Elsa Peretti, Halston Fall 1971 collection. 68th Street Salon. June 8, 1971. Photo by Berry Berenson

 
 

Cosmopolitan, March 1972. Photo: Francesco Scavullo