‘Halston’ Is an Engrossing Look at a Fashion Icon Who Paid The Ultimate Price For Glory

The fashion industry in America is still in its infancy. Though labels like Tom Ford and Marc Jacobs have risen to the top in the last four decades, there was a time when the industry belonged to European designers. Then came Halston. Roy Halston Frowick was an enigmatic figure who began making a name for himself in the 1960s as Bergdorf Goodman’s top milliner. He was the man who put Jackie Kennedy in her iconic pillbox hat for JFK’s 1961 inauguration. Eventually, with a historic 1973 runway show at the Palace of Versailles, Halston would place American fashion design at the world’s feet. In his exquisitely crafted and textured documentary, Halston–French filmmaker Frédéric Tcheng unearths the past–allowing Halston, the man, the designs, and the legacy to collide on screen.

Halston’s story begins in New York City in the ’60s. Using found footage and photographs, Tcheng unveils Halston’s Mad Med-like world. A man from the middle of America, Rory Frowick literally became Halston. He made himself into a glamorous illusive figure that never spoke openly about his childhood or home life. His lust for the now, as well as his determination to forget the past and only look ahead, is what enchanted so many people. After leaving Bergdorf Goodman’s in 1968 and striking out on his own, Halston began creating an elite world around him. He surrounded himself with people like Andy Warhol, fashion models like Iman (whom he put in her first runway show), his best friend Liza Minelli, Elizabeth Taylor, and a slew of his favored models whom he called the Halstonettes.

Tcheng uses traditional talking heads in his documentary–with those closest to Halston like Lesley Frowick and Pat Cleveland providing personal anecdotes about their time with the late designer. After all, during the ’70s and ’80s Halston was America’s superstar designer–he knew instinctively that he could connect the fashion world with Hollywood. In addition to interviews, the Dior and I filmmaker uses reenactments to drape a neo-noir layer of mystery around the movie. As the film reveals, everything that Halston worked for would eventually be ripped from under him.

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Director Stefon Bristol Talks His Majestic and Very Black Debut Feature 'See You Yesterday' [Tribeca Interview]

Filmmaker Stefon Bristol has always been drawn to sci-fi and superhero genres. While audiences have relished in the escapism elements of these genres since Georges Méliès' 1902 sci-fi flick A Trip to the Moon, Bristol was enticed by them for their capacity to be more than escapism for Black viewers. 

In the age of Black Lives Matter, Bristol's debut feature film See You Yesterday uses time travel to empower Black youth to deal with trauma in their community. See You Yesterday follows besties C.J. (Eden Duncan-Smith) and Sebastian Thomas (Danté Crichlow), two Brooklyn kids who uncover the secret for time traveling while working on a school science project. The duo put their newfound knowledge to work when the police murder C.J.'s older brother, Calvin (Brian "Astro" Bradley).

Bristol originally produced See You Yesterday as a short film to great acclaim for his graduate school thesis at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, where Spike Lee was his professor and mentor. Now, with Lee as a producer, Bristol has expanded the short into the feature film for Netflix that premiered at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.

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'The Apollo' Solidifies Black Harlem's Past But Leaves Uneasy Questions About Its Future [Tribeca Review]

Located in Harlem, New York, a vibrant neighborhood in Manhattan, the iconic Apollo Theater has stood for nearly 90 years on 125th street as a pillar of Black culture and community and a safe space for Black creatives. In his sweeping documentary, The Apollo, Roger Ross Williams chronicles the history of the Apollo Theater which began when it first opened its doors in 1934. Though the golden era of Harlem is known for the Savoy and the Cotton Club, spaces where legendary entertainers like Duke Ellington and Josephine Baker graced the stage, these venues were not open to Black Americans and certainly not for the Black residents of Harlem to be patrons. In the 1930s that all changed. With the help of talent scout/"Amateur Night" creator Ralph Cooper, the Apollo owner Frank Schiffman would bring Black entertainment and entertainers home to their people.

Using breathtaking archival video from inside of the Apollo and the streets of Harlem across the decades, Williams gives his audience a true sense of the giants that the Apollo introduced to the world. From 12-year old Stevie Wonder blowing on his harmonica in 1962 to Lauryn Hill in the early ‘90s getting booed off the stage for her pitchy vocals, it’s all there. The archives of this place are almost overwhelming. Choosing to place his interview subjects within the famed building as they provide history lessons and historical context also gives Williams’ The Apollo a certain authority.

There are interviews with icons like Patti LaBelle, Apollo historian and tour guide Billy “Mr. Apollo” Mitchell, who has been giving tours there for over fifty years, and other icons like Eva Issac, the "Queen of the Apollo." The Apollo is sprinkled with gems. Williams places his film within the context of Black history in this country while providing anecdotes about the theater itself. The audience hears from folks like Leslie Uggams who performed at the Apollo as a child star and watched Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Washington from the theater wings. She recalls how affectionate they all were towards her and how they adored Black people.

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Slick Woods Reflects On Her Turbulent Past In Her Film Debut ‘Goldie’

At 22, she has already taken the fashion world by storm. Now, Slick Woods is sizzling in her film debut, Goldie, which recently premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. The stunning model has strutted her stuff in all of her gap-toothed, shaved-head glory on runways for Marc Jacobs and in campaigns for Rihanna’s Fenty Beauty and Savage x Fenty. But for Goldie–helmed by director Sam De Jong, Woods had to get super personal. In the film, the Minneapolis native stars as the titular character, Goldie, an 18-year-old dancer determined to follow her dreams. Unfortunately, an opportunity to star in a music video for rapper Tiny (A$AP Ferg), is undermined when Goldie’s mother, Carol (Marsha Stephanie Blake), is arrested and she’s left to care for her younger sisters Sherrie, 8, and Supreme, 12 (Alanna Renee Tyler-Tompkins and Jazmyn C. Dorsey).

Determined to follow her dreams and keep her sisters out of the foster care system–Goldie uses every trick in her toolbox to keep her sisters safe while plotting to buy a gorgeous canary yellow fur-coat for the video. Though Goldie’s story is fictional and set in the Bronx–the character’s trajectory is eerily similar to Woods’. The Instagirl was homeless for many years after her mother was imprisoned for manslaughter.

Reliving her past wasn’t always easy for Woods, and throughout the 21-day shoot during a blazing hot New York summer in 2017, she often found herself at odds with De Jong. “Me and Sam argued the whole damn time,” she revealed. “But we got very close, and I respect everything about him because he always stood up to me. When I argued with him, he’d be like ‘No.’ Even times when I was crying, he was like ‘I need more! I need more!’ And I was like, ‘Fu*k this!’ Every time I cried, it was real. Goldieresonated with me because of what I’ve been through in my life. I was homeless on the street for twelve years –so being on the street again…it’s like I had PTSD.”

Ahead, this is what Woods had to say about her film debut, why Goldie was like therapy for her, and why acting forces her to step outside of her comfort zone.

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Image: Instagram.