Halston's minimalist, clean designs, which were often made of cashmere or ultrasuede, were a new phenomenon in the mid-1970s discotheques, and they redefined American fashion.

[1] He was frequently photographed at Studio 54 with his close friends Liza Minnelli, Bianca Jagger, Joe Eula, and Andy Warhol.

[2] In the early 1950s, while attending the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Halston began a business designing and making women's hats.

In the late 1960s, Halston made the transition to women's clothing, opening a boutique on Madison Avenue in New York and started a ready-to-wear line.

[5] Halston developed an early interest in sewing from his grandmother and he began creating hats and altering clothes for his mother and sister.

Halston's hats were also bought by Kim Novak, Gloria Swanson, Deborah Kerr, and Hedda Hopper.

[8] When hats fell out of fashion, Halston moved on to designing clothing, made possible by Estelle Marsh, a millionaire from Amarillo, Texas.

The collection that year included a dark jade velvet wedding gown for advertising executive Mary Wells Lawrence.

[15] Vogue later noted that Halston was responsible for popularizing caftans, which he made for Jacqueline Kennedy;[15] matte jersey halter top dresses; and polyurethane in American fashion.

Halston created interchangeable separates in shades of bone, tan and taupe which the airline extended to the seat covers, using brown Argentine leather.

The entire scheme was dubbed "Ultra Touch" by the airline in reference to Halston's ultrasuede designs, and was extremely evocative of the late 1970s.

An elaborate party was thrown in February 1977, dubbed Three Nights in Acapulco, to introduce the new Halston fashions along with the new and elegant Braniff International Airways.

Halston and his entourage would arrive at selected points during the party in outfits that matched the deep tones of Braniff Airways' new color schemes that would be applied to their aircraft as part of the new so-called Elegance Campaign.

The party and the Halston creations were a hit not only with the fashion press but also with Braniff employees, who thought they were the easiest and most comfortable uniforms they had ever worn.

He also designed the uniforms for the Girl Scouts, the New York Police Department, and the Avis Rent a Car System.

[20] In 1983, Halston signed a six-year licensing deal worth a reported $1 billion with retail chain J. C. Penney.

The line, called Halston III, consisted of affordable clothing, accessories, cosmetics and perfumes ranging from $24 to $200.

On March 26, 1990, he died of Kaposi's sarcoma, an AIDS-defining illness, at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco.

The retrospective was curated by Halston's niece Lesley Frowick and features material derived from his personal archives that he gave to her before his death.

[36] A similar article was published in August 2019, by CNN titled, "Free Inside Our Clothes: Top Models Remember What It Was Like to Walk a Halston Show".

[18] According to fashion critic Robin Givhan, when Tom Ford relaunched Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent in the late 1990s, he found his inspiration in the glittering glamour of Halston's style: "When Ford added Yves Saint Laurent to his workload in 1999, he did due diligence in researching the house's history.

[39] In 2006, Jimmy Choo co-founder Tamara Mellon, stylist Rachel Zoe, and film producer Harvey Weinstein partnered with Hilco Consumer Capital to purchase the line in another effort to relaunch it.

In 2008, Chris Royer curated the “Neiman Marcus Halston Glam" exhibition in San Francisco utilizing the Halston/Hilco archives.

[37] In 2009, actress Sarah Jessica Parker wore two Halston Heritage dresses in the film Sex and the City 2 and the company hired her as the president and chief creative officer for the mainline.

[39] During her tenure as creative director, Sarah Jessica Parker chose jeweler Jacqueline Rabun to design a selection of silver accessories.

[39][47] In late 2011, Hilco Consumer Capital consolidated ownership and brought in Ben Malka, former president of BCBG, to continue the Halston Heritage business as chairman and CEO.

Malka enlisted the help of Marie Mazelis, the former creative director of Max Azria and Hervé Léger, to spearhead the re-launch of the contemporary line.

Hilco decided to focus exclusively on the Halston Heritage ready-to-wear activity and invested an additional $7.5 million for its development.

[48] In February 2013, Halston Heritage signed a deal with the Majid Al Futtaim Group for distribution of its products in the United Arab Emirates.