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160 Years of Making... Heads Turn: Halston
School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) alums have been making history over the last 16 decades. In our “160 Years of Making” series, we’re celebrating the people who shaped the School, Chicago, and the art world at large. Watch for more profiles as we honor this historic anniversary.
Before he was designing gowns for stars like Liza Minelli and Elizabeth Taylor, Halston (SAIC 1952) was an ambitious SAIC student with a talent for glamorous hats. Born Roy Halston Frowick in Des Moines, Iowa, the now-mononymous Halston started his millinery business just one year after graduating and quickly developed a following for his hats’ refined, elegant designs.
By 1958, Halston had moved to New York City and become head milliner for the department store Bergdorf Goodman, but his fashion career was only just beginning. His breakthrough to national fame came in 1961, when Jacqueline Kennedy wore one of his iconic pillbox hats to President John F. Kennedy’s inauguration. By the 1970s, he had become one of the defining designers of the decade, creating sleek, modern garments that helped establish American fashion as a global force.
Halston’s signature designs and party-filled lifestyle became synonymous with the glamorous, disco fever zeitgeist. While his nights were spent with Andy Warhol and Bianca Jagger at Studio 54, his days were spent continually innovating what clothes, and the fashion industry itself, could look like. His simple, confident style is epitomized in the halter dress, a staple of disco fashion, which he popularized along with caftans and Ultrasuede fabric. Beyond this, he was one of the first major designers to create ready-to-wear couture, explore unisex garments, and cast racially diverse models to wear his collections.
Credit Dustin Pittman / New York Times
Throughout his career, Halston was committed to blending his unique artistic practice with a creative lifestyle and knack for business. That expansive vision continues to resonate at SAIC, where artists and designers are encouraged to think beyond traditional boundaries and imagine how creative work can move through culture, commerce, and everyday life.
“Making no compromise with the public taste.” This was the motto of The Little Review, a groundbreaking avant-garde magazine helmed by alum Jane Heap (SAIC 1902–1905).
Jane Heap pictured among her famous friends, including writers James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and Jean Cocteau, and artist Man Ray, photographed in front of the Jockey Club in Paris in 1923.