i may have mentioned that, over the new year's holidays, i was down for the count (fever and all!) with the TV remote permanently affixed to the palm of my hand...netflix was this gal's best friend.
i'm already a sucker for masterpiece theater- my kids can't stand it- but give me a british murder mystery and a down comforter and my brain FINALLY goes on vacation. but because i was confined to the sofa, martin and i also added a couple of interesting films -
1) 360
2) ultrasuede: the search for halston
360 was a waste of an all-star cast, though anthony hopkins was mesmerizing, as usual. and as for the halston documentary, ultrasuede, halston's life was equally entrancing with its midwest-meets-icharus tale.
sopping up tea and aspirin- i sat and watched as halston's career unfolded into a tale so analogous of the 70's. reagan- disco - drugs - decadence and a new celebration of americana (manifest destiny, really??). but back to the fashion world- halston, mostly, and some of his design colleagues (stephen burrows, ann klein, bill blass etc) did manage to take the world by storm along with the rest of america, surging from who-knows-what? the halston doc is a cheeky, insider's romp through that crazy decade as chronicled by halston's monumental and then monumentally forgotten legend.
there is no doubting a significant fashion genius, in halston. but ultrasuede, the fabric, is an apt symbol of his rise and fall. the synthetic textile that he put on the fashion map, along with most things once highly regarded during the 70's, perfectly symbolizes a plasticized, over-the-top luxury celebrated during an antoinette-style era. thank god for the return of cotton!