HALSTON's Heyday: An archive of favorites from TheFROCK.com's past and present inventory of vintage Halston dresses and gowns.
- C.T.Madrigal (amazon.com/author/ctmadrigal)
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 4 days ago
Early original vintage mainline HALSTON dresses and gowns from the 1970s and early 1980s have been TheFROCK.com's first focus since it went online in 2001. For 25 years we have sourced and sold the most coveted Halston designs; this archive is a small selection of our favorites. To view all the Halstons that are currently available for purchase, see the "Late Vintage" section in the site Menu.
I SEE EVERYTHING THROUGH A GAY LENS, and not just because I'm wearing Dame Edna glasses. If you’ve read my memoirs then you know I was gay since the word meant happy, though few near me were happy about that (sorry, Dad.) In fact, for many of my youngest years I was the only gay person I knew (and—but for a love of velour shirts—I didn't know myself particularly well.) This may have something to do with my early adoration for Halston, because—but for all his money and talent—Halston was like me. And as underrepresented people say: representation matters! And let's be clear, he did more than just represent, Lady Halston was the undisputed King of the power gays.
Now, one must be more than a famous fag to earn my adoration (sorry, Lindsey Graham. Sorry, Mike Pence.) So know that, gay or not, Halston wouldn't mean anything to me if not for his frocks. Now, I won't bore you with talk of Studio 54, or Bianca Jagger and Liza Minnelli; we all know it was a brilliant time and place, and that Halston was its epicenter. But I will speak to the idea that all of it can be seen in his clothes. The dresses look like disco, they look like Andy Warhol and they look like Blondie and Divine and Grace Jones. I see a great Halston dress and I know it stood in line only briefly, before someone grabbed it by the hand and whisked it inside a club. Disco women, Halston women, were the uncorseted flappers of another generation, they were relaxed when the times were uptight, they were braless because it was comfortable, they were low-key/high-style, and there's nothing cooler than that. While everyone else was pushing belted business suits and big shoulder pads and taffeta ruffles, the most elegant dress in the room was a Halston, and it was machine washable.
Surely Halston didn't invent the disco look, but he did elevate it, he made it belong in a museum (polyester jersey dresses in museums!) And Halston's style extended well beyond dancing dresses, that signature ease is unmissable in his evening gowns, beaded shift dresses, blouses, hats, capes... Halston transformed easy-fit into high fashion, and—if you ask little gay me—fashion's forever better for it.
I've said goodbye to hundreds of vintage Halstons over the last quarter century, and I'm terrible at goodbyes. So, I've brought a handful back to the website, here in this archive. If I could have photographed them in the haze of a disco fog machine I would, but I'm sure it'd upset my smoke alarms. For any Halston that is available for purchase (at the time of this post), you'll find a link in the photo caption.
If you're looking to buy a vintage HALSTON, just type his name into our site's search bar. You'll find an ever-evolving array of available original Halston dresses and gowns (and layaway's available with a 20% deposit.)
TheFROCK.com has specialized in vetted and valuable vintage frocks since 2001. To see our now-vintage (2005) interview with VOGUE magazine, click here.
C.T.Madrigal for TheFROCK.com
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