Dressed To Kill -- and Die

By J.D. Reed

When Halston died last week at the age of 57, the first reports gave the cause simply as cancer. The designer's brother, Robert Frowick, however, quickly confirmed the rumors that for months had rippled through the fitting rooms and executive suites of the glittering haute couture world. The truth was that Halston, who introduced U.S. women to the pillbox hat, slinky jerseys, tunics and Ultrasuede, who dressed Betty Ford, Liza Minnelli, Jackie Kennedy Onassis and Elizabeth Taylor, and who partied hard with the best of the jet set, had succumbed to AIDS.

The initial reluctance to name the cause of Halston's death was not unusual in the close-knit fashion industry. Broadway and Hollywood may have organized to combat the disease that is decimating their ranks, but the couture business -- increasingly nervous about its image with consumers and investors, and struggling to find a new direction in a sluggish retail market -- remains nearly silent about the disease that is carrying off some of its most famous names in their creative prime.

And they are losses that resonate beyond the runway. Says writer Jonathan Moor, the biographer of designer Perry Ellis: "What is different about the fashion industry, compared to theater or film or music, is that the whole thrust of fashion is really under the influence of about ten major people in the world. Their ideas are the ideas that come down the runways at $10,000 a kick, which are within six months translated into something that comes out at J.C. Penney for $100. And those people are at risk."

AIDS has thrown a cloud over the fashion industry. It is blurring the images that expensive clothing so carefully nurtures: beauty, health, vitality, success and, of course, sex appeal. The industry's creative energy is being dissipated -- and diminished -- by AIDS. Many designers are finding it more difficult to finance their lines; others complain they cannot get life or medical insurance. "The industry has been reticent to speak outwardly about AIDS," says Annie Flanders, founder of the trendy New York City-based fashion magazine Details and a board member of Design Industries Foundation for AIDS (DIFA), a group that assists sufferers. "It is terrified of the effect on business."

The fashion industry is especially vulnerable to AIDS because it employs the talents of many gay men, from top designers to hairdressers, makeup people and assistant window dressers. It is impossible to gauge exactly how many AIDS- related illnesses and deaths have occurred in the fashion business, but among the stars who have been extinguished since 1986 are Perry Ellis, Angel Estrada and Willi Smith. Paris-based American designer Patrick Kelly died of a brain tumor in January, but some in the fashion world believe his death was AIDS-related. The death of Italy's Giorgio Sant' Angelo from lung cancer has also been the subject of gossip. Says Paris-based fashion critic Carol Mongo: "So many name designers are dying that one wonders what direction the industry will take over the next ten to 15 years."

Every illness or absence fuels rumors in the industry. When Yves Saint Laurent was hospitalized for exhaustion last month and failed for the first time to appear at his Paris ready-to-wear show, there was some gossip of AIDS. But Saint Laurent has long suffered from a delicate constitution and is prone to overwork. Rumors that Calvin Klein had AIDS surfaced about seven years ago. Klein, who is married for a second time, strongly denied the rumors.

Fashion businesses like Klein's make a sizable contribution to the U.S. economy. Total apparel and accessories sales last year accounted for $91.2 billion, making fashion one of the nation's major industries. American firms exported $2.6 billion worth of apparel, making up an important segment of the balance of trade. Many corporations and banks in both the U.S. and Japan are investing in fashion houses, providing needed operating cash and funding ambitious new projects. They are, says Barry Landau, a public relations executive and friend of Halston's, "buying motion picture companies or fashion houses. These are the glamour industries that give them good profiles and visibility."

But AIDS is straining the relationship and causing some investors to look elsewhere. "We have looked into 20 or so creative companies where we have seen a real effect ((of AIDS)), and we're just going to stay away," says Howard Davidowitz, who owns a national retailing consultancy. "In a creative situation, you're really investing in one or two people. In a department store you may have a hundred vice presidents." Nonsense, says Frank Mori of Takihyo, a U.S. firm that owns 100% of the Anne Klein label, which is designed by Louis Dell'Olio, and 50% of the hot and successful Donna Karan line, "there is still as much risk of a name designer being run over by a car."

Some fashion houses have thrived since their namesakes' deaths; others have struggled along. Chanel and Dior have prospered long after their originators passed on. The Perry Ellis lines continue, though on a more modest level, since the designer's death in 1986. His menswear and casual sportswear have done well, but the women's fashion business, a portion of the heart of any major couture house, has faltered. Williwear, Willi Smith's sports-clothes line, is doing a booming business. Says the designer's flamboyant sister Toukie: "There are hundreds of other talented young people out there, and the spirit can continue. And that's what's important, that the spirit does not die once the person is dead."

Yet dealing with AIDS is clearly sapping fashion's creative energies. People are worried that co-workers will disappear into the hospital from one day to ! the next. In smaller ateliers, such twists of fate can demoralize the staff and derail a whole collection. In an effort to survive in the business, some men are reportedly getting married to cover up the fact that they are gay. Health and life insurers, as well as banks and financiers, increasingly demand that men, and even women, be tested for AIDS as part of fashion-business arrangements. Says designer Betsey Johnson: "I can't get life insurance. I can't open a door without getting an AIDS test."

So far, the problem has not discouraged young people from entering the troubled industry. Applications to New York City's renowned Fashion Institute of Technology have remained steady. Says Richard Martin, dean of graduate studies: "Most people come into fashion really out of a fierce kind of devotion to it."

Because of the concern about men's vulnerability to AIDS, women designers are attracting new interest from the financial community. New York designer Rebecca Moses, for one, has been approached by investors about expanding her line. Says DIFA's Flanders: "It's been notoriously frustrating for women to get the backing. Now investors are looking at women with very open eyes and in a very different way than they did before." The human cost of winning that new interest, however, is tragic.

With reporting by Kathryn Jackson Fallon/New York