Raffaele Pacitti's 'Mister Halston' debuts at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor

In the new movie "The Devil Wears Prada 2," Marc Jacobs (playing himself) worries that omnipotent fashion editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) hates the humongous bow teetering on a model’s head.

"I told you she hates the bow," snarls Jacobs, a comment that could very well trace its roots to legendary designer Halston. Born Roy Halston Frowick, the designer was a renegade, said Raffaele Pacitti, whose new play, "Mister Halston," gets its world premiere June 2-21 at Bay Street Theater in Sag Harbor. "He decided women should be freed of all constraints," Pacitti said, eliminating things like unnecessary zippers, buttons and most definitely bows.

The Toronto-born Pacitti, who came to New York in 1995 to pursue modeling and went on to a career in public relations, said he was always interested in the designer. "I kept hearing people talk about Halston like he was some sort of religious figure," said Pacitti, who based his play in part on a 1987 article in The New York Times that chronicled the rise and fall of the designer. "The more I learned, the more fascinated I became," the playwright said of the designer who once inspired Newsweek to ask in a headline, "Will Halston take over the world?"

"I realized he was an important cultural figure outside of fashion. This was the first time a fashion designer was elevated to the level of celebrity," Pacitti said.

Connection to the East End

The play is set primarily in Halston’s chic East 63rd Street Manhattan penthouse, but the designer had a life on Long Island as well, Pacitti said. He rented a home on Andy Warhol’s Montauk estate, Eothen, for many years. "It was his refuge," said Pacitti. The nearly 6-acre Sanford White-designed complex with a main house and four cottages was rented to others as well — the Rolling Stones and Lee Radziwill among them. Halston started renting in 1982, according to a 2021 article by Michael Kaplan in Grazia magazine. Warhol complained that the designer was getting a bargain, paying only $40,000 a summer when others might have paid double, Kaplan wrote. Contrary to Ryan Murphy’s 2021 Netflix series, "Halston," the designer didn’t buy the property (one reason perhaps that Halston’s family released a statement calling the series "an inaccurate, fictionized account"). He did, however, buy nearby property with model Lauren Hutton, but was never able to develop it.

Warhol liked renting to Halston, according to the Grazia article, whether because he enjoyed hanging out with the people in Halston’s inner circle (Liza Minnelli was a frequent visitor) or just knowing that Halston, who brought his own furniture and insisted on the installation of a Vulcan professional stove, would take good care of the place. Plus, there were the times he could hitch a ride on Halston’s plane.

Spending time in Fire Island Pines

Before discovering the relative peace of the East End, Halston was a regular at a far more hedonistic spot on the Island. "He virtually fell in love with the beauty and freedom of the Fire Island Pines," Steven Gaines writes in his 1991 biography, "Simply Halston: The Untold Story." For the next six or seven years, Gaines writes, "Halston’s weekends were spent mostly in the Fire Island Pines. It became a pressure release from all the formality and propriety of his weekdays with the ladies."

An article on the Pines Historical Society website (pineshistory.org) says the designer "met many people who would play a big role in both his personal and professional life," among them one of his great romances. He first saw Ed Austin at a tea dance in 1964 and, as the story is told in both the Netflix series and in Gaines’ book, he sent over a drink. Austin refused it, but Halston waited for him after the dance and introduced himself as Eric. They became lovers, though few knew about the relationship, most thinking he was just the manager of Halston’s boutique. The relationship cooled after five or six years, according to a 2021 article in Newsweek.

A fashion visionary 

Halston’s promiscuity (he died of AIDS-related cancer in 1990) and drug use are prominent in all accounts of his life. In Pacitti’s play, the designer slips out every so often with a vial of something, a reference to his habitual use of cocaine. In one scene toward the end of the play, a phone call with Liza Minnelli suggests she’s worried about him. "Of course, I could use a rest," he tells her. "I’m in complete ruins."

Capturing Halston’s unraveling is a painful part of the story, Pacitti said. "It’s partly a morality tale. ... He got caught up in his own celebrity," the playwright said, talking about how Halston’s collection for JCPenney  ultimately lead to him losing control of his business. "The real tragedy is that he signed away his name," said Pacitti. "He didn’t understand the scope of what was happening."

But people should remember that beyond all the wild nights partying at Studio 54, Halston has to be respected for his work, Pacitti said. He’s gotten some insight on that from Donna Karan, the renowned designer who saw the play at a workshop last summer and signed on as executive producer. "She’s a great fan of Halston," Pacitti said. "She reinforced a lot of what I knew about Halston," Pacitti said, "that he was revolutionary in the way he structured clothing."

"He developed this incredible minimalism that was so dynamic and at the same time so glamorous," Pacitti said. "He made women look fabulous," he added, pointing to designs like caftans and his use of Ultrasuede. "He wanted women to be able to walk down the street and feel incredibly put together."