TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/040990/0409560.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 7.4 KB | 157 lines

                                                                                FASHION, Page 81

Dressed to Kill -- and Die


As more and more designers succumb, AIDS takes a devastating
toll on the fashion industry


    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.



By J.D. Reed. Reported by Kathryn Jackson Fallon/New York.