Netflix’s ‘Halston’ Explores Elsa Peretti’s Rise And Friendship With Designer
By Emili Vesilind | May 17, 2021
"Netflix’s Halston, the latest show from prolific TV producer Ryan Murphy, chronicles the life of legendary fashion designer Roy Halston Frowick—“Halston” to everyone in his orbit—whose slinky gowns and sharp day dresses defined fashion in the late 1970s and early ’80s.
The five-part series is Murphy’s second ode to a fashion genius who made a huge mark on fashion, then died too young. The producer chronicled Gianni Versace’s final days in 2018’s Assassination of Gianni Versace.
In Halston, British actor Ewan McGregor deftly inhabits the titular character. But the show is very much an ensemble production. And it had to be—Halston, in his heyday, surrounded himself with an eccentric coterie of collaborators and friends that included artist Andy Warhol, illustrator Joe Eula, dance legend Martha Graham, Liza Minnelli, and a group of effervescent model-muses that included Pat Cleveland, Anjelica Huston, and one Elsa Peretti, future jewelry legend.
Halston (played by Ewan McGregor, in black turtleneck) and his Studio 54 crew, including Elsa Peretti (portrayed by Rebecca Dayan, third from left) in the Netflix miniseries Halston (photo: Patrick McMullan/Netflix)
Yes, the jewelry supernova, who passed away in January at the age of 80, began her career as a model for the house of Halston, among others. She developed a close friendship with the designer, and became an invaluable style whisperer and, eventually, cocreator. She honed her sculptural aesthetics making jewelry to complement his collections, and even masterminded the teardrop-shape bottle for Halston’s first fragrance.
In Halston, Peretti is played by lithesome French-born actress and model Rebecca Dayan, who portrays her as chic, a little droll, and wildly creative, which by all reports she was.
One scene in the series shows Dayan as Peretti scouring a flea market and chancing upon the simple necklace that inspired one of her first major designs, the Bottle Jug Pendant. Another chronicles her creative-directing a glass blower making Halston’s famously wabi-sabi perfume bottle (it needed to be off-center just so).
Rebecca Dayan as Elsa Peretti (photo: Atsushi Nishijima/Netflix)
Peretti and Halston were Studio 54 regulars, and the show spotlights the joy, hedonism, and grittiness of that well-documented scene. Things with Halston and Peretti didn’t end so well, and that plays out in a riveting scene late in the series—though it’s unknown how true to life any of the scenes in Halston are, as the late designer’s estate considers the entire project as unauthorized.
But the series does accurately illustrate that as Halston’s star faded, dragged down by too many low-brow ... "
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