Halston killed Halston.
That the brightness of Studio 54 and its regulars does not prevent us from seeing the forest: the miniseries about the first great American designer produced by Ryan Murphy and released on Netflix last Friday focuses on the professional sacrifice of the dressmaker at the hands of his own brand, a phenomenon now naturalized in the fashion industry of which he was a sad pioneer.
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Parties, sex and lots of fashion: the overwhelming personality of Halston, the seamstress of the '70s glamor, arrives on Netflix
Following the sale of his brand and its services to Norton Simon, Halston was forced to subject his creativity to foreign profitability.
He had to increase his production and grant licenses for all kinds of products to bear his name.
His lack of involvement in a business as diversified as not very stimulating contributed to the devaluation of his firm, and his logical losses made it cheaper until it was sold at the JC Penney chain of stores.
They all killed her and she alone devoured her creator.
Ryan Murphy is also a brand.
His name matters so much that it is assumed that
Halston
is his even if he did not create it, as has happened, among others, with the extraordinary
American Crime Story
.
The Murphy label is estimated to cost Netflix $ 300 million, the most expensive signing of a creator by the company.
Since his arrival on the platform in 2018, he has released
The Politician
,
Ratched
,
Hollywood
, The Prom, The Boys in the Band, Halston
and the documentaries
Circus of Books
and
A Secret Love.
They are not sheets or suitcases like the ones that carried the Halston name, but they have also lowered their bar.
The dilemma between quality and profitability is false, but it has happened to Ryan Murphy as it has to Halston.
He knows it, but being aware of his reality did not save the designer, will it save him?
The Halston fable is on its way to becoming Murphy's Law.
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