Halston Heritage – Pre Spring/Summer 2016 Ready-To-Wear

Often, pre-season collections serve as a time for designers to air their work at its most commercial, focused as those offerings are on keeping new stock on retailers’ shelves. But for Halston Heritage’s Marie Mazelis, Resort allowed her to explore the season in the truest sense of the word, zeroing in on a beachy elegance inspired by Roy Halston Frowick’s 1976 press jaunt to Acapulco, Halstonettes in tow. While not dripping in the kind of Studio 54-honed debauchery one would expect from Halston and his entourage (Halston Heritage in recent years has been marked by a quietly conservative undertone, from palette to silhouette), it was an opportunity for Mazelis to ease up on the brand’s more office-minded leanings. She turned an eye instead to one-shoulder wafting caftans, palazzo jumpsuits, and gauzy, accordion-pleated maxi gowns, ready-made for poolside lounging and a spin or two on the dance floor. Glossy hardware as built-in accessory—an HH signature for several seasons now—sprung to life as chains that linked together bodices and skirts. But perhaps the best bling on offer here came in the form of a simple beaded cream shirtdress. What it lacked in diaphanous yards of material it more than made up for in a certain Halston-esque loucheness.