RELATED EVENTS

• Breaking the Mode: Contemporary Fashion from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art
• Simply Halston

Jessica Barner, conservation technician (left), and Kathleen Kiefer, senior conservator of textiles at the IMA, prepare a Halston pantsuit, circa 1970s, to be seen as part of the exhibit devoted to the designer. (Frank Espich / The Star)

Roy Halston Frowick, later known as designer Halston, came to national fame by creating the pillbox hat that Jacqueline Kennedy wore to her husband's inauguration.

Halston strayed from the mold in designing formal clothing, creating these hand-dyed silk, velvet evening pajama outfits in the 1970s. (Frank Espich / The Star)

Designer Roy Halston's red silk chiffon jumpsuit has a halter top and a jacket with pleated raglan sleeves. It's part of the Indianapolis Museum of Art's Halston exhibit, which is on display until Jan. 4. (Frank Espich / The Star)

Bill Blass was not only an outstanding designer, but a highly successful businessman. (Indianapolis News 1997 file photo)

This silvery silk lame head wrap went with a Halston "mermaid" dress, circa 1975. (Frank Espich / The Star)

Noblesville native Norman (Levinson) Norell made only true couture - individualized garments for very wealthy clients who appreciated their meticulous construction. (Indianapolis Star 1948 file photo)

When the Fashion Walk of Fame was first laid down on Manhattan sidewalks in 2000, it honored eight great designers of the 20th century. Three were Hoosiers.

The names of Roy Halston, Bill Blass and Norman Norell were engraved on plaques alongside industry titans such as Calvin Klein and Ralph Lauren -- not bad for three Indiana guys.

"Certainly, we've been the source for three of the really big names in 20th-century fashion," said Mary Jane Teeters-Eichacker, curator of social history at the Indiana State Museum. "Between the three of them, they've pretty well redefined how women dressed during the time they were active."

So how did their home state affect the designers?

"I'm sure it had some influence," says Niloo Paydar, IMA curator of textile and fashion arts. "But it's hard to say."

Many are surprised that heavy-hitting fashion influences hailed from Indiana. The fault might lie with the designers themselves, who may have been hesitant to claim their Midwestern roots.

"They didn't want to be known as being from Indiana, particularly," Teeters-Eichacker says. "They certainly didn't say, 'I designed this way 8because I'm from Indiana.'."

But, she notes, you can see the straightforward Midwestern common sense creeping through the designs.

"What you can see in all their looks is this fresh, no-nonsense (style) within the outlines of what they chose to do," she says. "(The) look was very clean, even if it had ruffles coming off it."

Halston

Isaac Mizrahi said that everyone deserves beautiful things, and Sarah Jessica Parker's clothing line at Steve & Barry's runs with the slogan "Fashion is not a luxury." But it was an Indiana designer who foreshadowed this philosophy.

Roy Halston Frowick was born in Des Moines, Iowa, but his family moved to Evansville when Halston was about 10 years old. Thus, he's widely considered a Hoosier -- which is !why the Indianapolis Museum of Art has an extensive collection -- about 200 -- of Halston's pieces.

"We like to keep Halston as one of our own," says the IMA's Niloo Paydar.

After graduating from high school, Halston moved from Indiana to Chicago and designed windows for Carson Pirie Scott. His hat designs caught the eye of milliner Lilly Dache, gaining him entry into a higher echelon of hat design. Jacqueline Kennedy wore one particularly notable hat, the pillbox, to her husband's presidential inauguration in 1961. From hats, the designer moved to women's clothing, staging his first runway show in 1968. Soon he was outfitting the likes of Lauren Bacall, Bianca Jagger, Elizabeth Taylor and Liza Minnelli, along with his look-alike models, the Halstonettes. He was also becoming immersed in the New York drug scene, in no short supply at the infamous Studio 54.

By 1973, Halston was at the top of his game, says Elizabeth Mix, assistant professor of art history in the Department of Media Arts at Butler University.

"He's the fashion equivalent of Andy Warhol," she says.

That same year, Halston turned over the running of his operation to Norton Simon, who created the licensing agreement with JCPenney. Although other designers had pioneered licensing products under their names, Halston's licensing agreement was controversial, Mix says.

"Now it's more acceptable than when Halston did it," she says. "His celebrity clientele says, 'We're not touching you anymore.'."

Halston, Mix says, was a perfectionist and a "control freak" -- qualities the drug culture of the 1970s club scene did not nourish.

"It's a weird kind of combination," Mix says. "He was always a perfectionist -- that's the thing that made him fantastic. (But) Once you start licensing, you need to give up some of the control."

After several tantrums in the house of Halston, the designer was fired from the company in 1984, losing the right to design under his own name.

In 1988, Halston was diagnosed with AIDS; he died two years later. Although he became a recluse, Mix says, "Halston died trying to get his name back."

His influence is decidedly present in many facets of the fashion world, says Mix. Halston was one of the first designers to consider women of different sizes, with caftan and tunic designs that would fit and flatter many body types.

Conversely, Halston changed the way rich women thought about clothing, Paydar says. The well-to-do he dressed were embracing the idea of casual clothing that Halston brought out.

"(The designs) were comfortable and chic," Paydar says. "It wasn't an opposing concept anymore -- and this was something that became part of the classical American style."

For the first time in years, New York Fashion Week 2008 saw a Halston-label runway show by the brand's new creative director, Marco Zanini. The new line carries over the basic elements of Halston's work: minimalism, drape and flow in the fabric, innovative fabrics (this was the designer who popularized Ultrasuede) and amazing cut.

For Paydar, Halston was the first American designer who had his own sense of style, free of European influences.

"He really defined American style and gave it identity," she says. "I think you can see the minimalist approach he had to his clothing -- the clean lines."

Bill Blass

He was the all-American designer, with a range in style and business acumen that carried him through 30 years in the field.

William Ralph Blass, son of a dressmaker and !a traveling hardware salesman, was born in Fort Wayne in 1922. In 1939, he headed to the Parsons School of Design in New York; a few years later, he was drafted to serve in World War II. Stationed in Europe, Blass worked as a camouflage artist, gaining a healthy respect for patterns.

After the war, he returned to New York City. He joined Maurice Rentner Ltd. in 1959, and in 1970 he bought the company, established his own fashion house and began selling his elegant, graphically striking clothes to all markets.

Like Halston, Blass licensed his name. Unlike Halston, Blass wasn't into drugs.

"Blass was a superb businessman," says museum curator Mary Jane Teeters-Eichacker. "Bill Blass was the one whose work was democratized across all class levels because of his marketing."

Blass was known for his coterie of very wealthy clients, including Nancy Reagan. He often created heavily beaded and sequined clothing -- including jackets that re-created works by painter Henri Matisse and other modern artists.

"You can see them for five miles on a cloudy day," Teeters-Eichacker says.

Blass created dazzling evening gowns; graphic, bold fabric prints and easily worn active wear that flattered the figure.

"He's the all-American designer," says Teeters-Eichacker. "His sportswear was clothing you could really move in. He had a very Midwestern attitude toward designs. And he'd probably faint hearing me saying this, but his clothing was practical for what it was intended for."

Blass retired in 2000, after designing for his house for 30 years. He died in 2002.

"He was a designer for a more contemporary lifestyle," Teeters-Eichacker says.

Norman Norell

The name of Norman Norell is still emblazoned on bottles of his signature scent. His name's longevity shouldn't come as a surprise, considering the classic lines and looks of his clothing designs.

Norman David Levinson was born in 1900 in Noblesville. The son of a haberdasher, he got his start working for Paramount Pictures, dressing the likes of Gloria Swanson.

Later, in New York, he dropped the Levinson and picked up "Norell," said Mary Jane Teeters-Eichacker. He began by working with designers such as Charles Armour and, later, Hattie Carnegie. By 1960, Norell's name was solo on his labels.

At his peak, in the 1950s and '60s, Norell designed exquisitely constructed evening wear for the wealthy.

"He did just wonderful stuff," Teeters-Eichacker said. "He did all those amazing hand details," the curator says. "The bound buttonholes on fabric, the quality of lining and interlining. It was done in the very best materials."

Norell did strictly couture, never anything mass-marketed.

"If you had a Norell, you had one of his originals," Teeters-Eichacker says. "Most American designers after Norell have had a more public component to their work."

Norell died in New York in 1972. His pieces, also on display at the State Museum, stand the test of time. A camel and black suit "stands out with every bit of oomph it ever had," says Teeters-Eichacker. "His stuff has substance."

Halston display is disco deluxe

One couldn't fault the designers of the upcoming Halston exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art if they had chosen to put a disco ball in the Paul Fashion Arts Gallery.

Just look at the Halston pieces on display and you can easily picture a flock of svelte Halstonettes donning the pleated red catsuits and heading off to a party on the arm of Roy Halston Frowick. Or a lithe Liza Minnelli in that glowing golden gown amid the whirling, swirling atmosphere of Studio 54.

"Simply Halston," on exhibit until Jan. 4, features 32 of the IMA's collection of about 200 Halston pieces.

Presiding over the exhibit will be a large photo of Halston, Minnelli and Bianca Jagger sharing a laugh. The pieces in "Simply Halston" are the designer's high-end and couture works. They were all gifts, except for two that are on loan (for now -- Niloo Paydar, IMA curator of textile and fashion arts, is in the process of acquiring them for the IMA).

Included are elegant hand-beaded "fireworks" pieces; disco-ready sparkling minimalist dresses; see-through, pajama-like evening pantsuits; a sarong dress in a Halston-designed print, and a black-and-white two-piece outfit with ruffles done in the designer's signature minimalist approach.

"People probably have no idea we have this collection," Paydar says. "Hopefully, this will change people's opinions about the '70s and '80s designers."

Want more?

If you can't get enough of our fabulous Indiana designers, there's more on display at the Indiana State Museum. The museum has pieces by Halston, Norell and Bill Blass in its collection; six are on exhibit right now.

Designs by Blass are included in the Indianapolis Museum of Art's "Breaking the Mode: Contemporary Fashion from the Permanent Collection, Los Angeles County Museum of Art," on display until June 1.

You've seen the exhibit; now read "Halston," by Steven Bluttal. The 560-page book, published in 2001, follows Halston from the design studio to Studio 54.