The Bite Magazine - Spring/Summer 2022 - Issue 31

bitefashion When the immense spending power of the ‘80s wound down and speciality chains folded or consolidated, the after-effects led the designer to close his couture brand in 1995 and consult for other companies. Meanwhile, Halston had ceased to exist as a clothing line until 1996, when it was relaunched with sportswear design- er Randolph Duke at the creative helm. The following year, Duke asked Hall, his classmate and friend from design school, to lead Halston’s luxury line, the Signature Collection. During his creative directorship at Halston, Hall revived the fash- ion house to its former glory with sleek eveningwear worn by a distinguished coterie of celebrated artists, including Celine Dion, Sharon Stone, Charlize Theron and Salma Hayek. He had to create the concepts and designs for the Fall and Spring collections from scratch and had the ultimate creative say in other products that the brand now licenses, including sleepwear, shoes and hats. A year after leaving Halston in 2000, Hall founded Kevan Hall Company and launched a signature ready-to-wear line, the Kevan Hall Collection. The fashion philosophy emphasised purity of style, incomparable tailoring and sensuously draped streamlined silhouettes thanks to his natural design sense of sophisticated ele- gance and uncluttered modern design. In 2002, Hall won Designer of the Year at the 47th Annual Gold Coast Fashion Award in Chicago. Three years later, he was award- ed Stylemaker of the Year by Life & Style Magazine for his glamor- ous gowns worn on the red carpet by Vanessa Williams, Virginia Madsen, Tina Fey, Debra Messing and Sandra Oh. Felicity Huff- man won Best Actress in a Comedy Series at the Emmys wearing his rouge silk gown with a Swarovski crystal accent. His designs have also been seen on the red carpet at the Met Gala in New York. The designer made guest appearances on TV shows like The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Kimora: Life in the Fab Lane, America’s Next Top Model, Inside Edition, Extreme Makeover and E!’s Fash- ion Police . Hall has given lectures at the Norman Lear Centre of the University of Southern California, for the Costume Council at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the FashionSpeak conference in Detroit on his inspirations and influences when de- signing his collection. He is the founder of The Novus Forum, an international collec- tive trade show that features luxury womenswear and accessory designers that has become the fashion destination for global buy- ers in the New York fashion market. Hall is one of the founders of Black Design Collective, a non-profit organisation established to create scholarships, educational and business workshops and mentorships for young designers to pursue a career in fashion and costume design. After a two-decade hiatus focusing on other creative avenues, the celebrated designer made a triumphant return to New York Fashion Week. For Spring-Summer 2022, Hall presented his collection ‘Brushstrokes’ in response to the elegance of the 1930’s Parisian multicultural, which references French artist Christian Berard’s signature paint- ing style and his contemporaries, including Swiss sculptor Alberto Giacometti and interior designer Jean Michel-Frank. Using these disciplines, Hall translated trompe l’oeil details and architectural panelling into streamlined silhouettes for the modern woman in 26 looks. The collar and pocket details mir- rored accents found within a French interior. The titled theme