Movie Review: ‘Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston’ Still Leaves Me Searching

23, January 2012Movie ReviewsNo Comments

Hearing “Halston’ I immediately think of high fashion, but before seeing this film I had no knowledge beyond that. After watching ‘Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston’, first time director Whitney Sudler-Smith seemed to have the same experience. Having self-proclaimed little knowledge of the subject (other than glamorizing the designer for his lifestyle in the 70s), Smith interviews several fashion designers whom Halston was acquainted with and skips around to each while never quite forming a complete story.

The film starts out very strong with a fantastic interview with Liza Minelli, but going back throughout the film, it’s clear that she’s not giving the full story and sugar-coating many aspects of his life and her’s. The film also keeps alluding to the demise of the label but does not explain it until near the end of the film. It felt like Smith presumed the audience knew about Halston’s design career, and so it focused on the people around him. Again this is also a missed opportunity because Halston seemed to have an equally interesting design concept.

Born Ray Halston Frowick in Des Moines, Iowa in 1932, Halston’s acheived great fame when he designed the pillbox hat that Jacqueline Kennedy wore to her husband’s inauguration. The film does not mention anything previous to this other than a few casual mentions of his birth in the midwest. There are a few references to his time at Bergdorf Goodman, but nothing of what he did there or how it related to his design. I feel this is an incredibly missed opportunity and really wanted to know more.

I did really enjoy the fact that the filmmaker was in front of the camera and that the interviews were casual, but in a lot of aspects, they were too casual, as Smith often interrupts the subject and distracts the flow of the conversation. Smith’s appearance is also somewhat distracting; he appears short brown hair in one interview and then sporting blonde hair with a moustache in the next. I understand that the interviews take place over the course of a few years, but sometimes I wondered who he was, not realizing he had changed appearance. Also, at one point, he’s speaking with his mom, but at first, I thought he was speaking to a designer because it was never introduced. Smith dresses in 1970s garb, and it seems as though it’s his everyday look. It seemed surprising that based on his wardrobe that he was not a fashionista himself.

The film spends a lot of time addressing Halston’s lifestyle in the era of discotheques and the infamous studio 54. While it is a fascinating topic, it seemed as though Smith purposely directed conversations to discuss the decadence and the lavish lifestyles. It felt forced and it probably would have been a more focused documentary if Smith had made the film about the glamour of the 1970s.

It’s a visually stunning film, as many photos have been graphically altered for a 3D effect and there is an amazing amount of archival footage. It puts you in that time and gives you an idea of what it must have been like.

Rating: Interesting, but only scratches the surface of the life of the legendary designer. 4/10