Ultrasuede® is Front and Center of New Halston Bio-Pic

NEW YORK—April 30, 2010

The world premiere of Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston was inserted into the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City last week at the last possible moment.

41-year-old director Whitney Sudler-Smith surprised cinéasts with the premiere of the two-hour film at an all-seats-taken screening. Tickets were non-existent but General Manager of Ultrasuede Department of Toray International America Inc. (TIAM) Yasuhiro Takagi and his colleague Robert Steir, managed to get them and attended the tightly admitted presentation.

The Iowa-born, 1970s fashion designer Roy Halston Frowick, who went simply by the name of HALSTON, was the world's first Billion Dollar designer and through his selection of the then new material Ultrasuede® made it a household word in America, sought-after by Park Avenue doyennes and high-end fashionistas who were the artists of his time.

The film consists of interviews of few dozens of HALSTON's closest friends and associates ranging from the opening sequence with Liza Minnelli to the closing shot of CBS anchor Dan Rather announcing HALSTON'S passing by reminding everyone that it was HALSTON who designed Jacqueline Kennedy's iconic “Pill Box Hat.” In between lies the film's very successful evocation of the mad lifestyle of New York City in the 1970s: Studio 54, excessive partying, and the introduction of the “designer-as-licensing-genius” which catapulted HALSTON to the heights and then the depths of artistic and financial success and ultimately failure.

Today's inheritor of HALSTON's mantel, the fashion designer Ralph Rucci, explained the origin of and the role that Ultrasuede® played in the hands of HALSTON as his own instrument of art; that the highest quality of materials cashmere, hand-hammered satin, and feather-weight silks supported the essentially unstructured concept of HALSTON's look. In the audience were Pat Cleveland, one of HALSTON's top models; Sarah Jessica Parker, the new president of Halston Design; Linda Fargo, Director of Fashion for Bergdorf Goodman; André Leon Talley, Editor at Large for VOGUE; Matthew Tyrnauer, director of "Valentino: The Last Emperor" and Ralph Rucci, president of Chaddo Ralph Rucci.

Mr. Takagi said he was pleased and impressed by the care with which Ultrasuede® was represented in the film, beginning with the title. And that the brand's image was handled with the respect in accordance with the prestige HALSTON developed with everything he made—whether it was dresses or suits or coats or sunglasses or carpeting or furnishings. Particularly interesting were the historic interior photographs of HALSTON's Paul Rudolph-designed apartment which featured low-level seating upholstered entirely in charcoal-grey Ultrasuede® and adorned with large “pasha-style” back cushions upholstered in ivory-colored Ultrasuede®. In addition, Mr. Takagi also noticed, and commented on the consistency of the fact, that each and every time HALSTON himself appeared in the film, he was wearing a nougat-colored Ultrasuede® jacket over a black turtleneck sweater—making a kind of branding statement both for himself and the product decades ahead of the time when “branding” would become such a normal practice in fashion.

The film is currently under consideration for distribution by a number of companies; the Los Angeles premiere is slated for Wednesday, May 12th.

For more information on Ultrasuede: In Search of Halston, visit
http://www.halstonmovie.com.

For more information, please contact:
Toray International America Inc.
Ultrasuede Department
461 Fifth Avenue, 9th Fl.
New York NY 10017
212-922-3761 (tel)
212-972-4279 (fax)
marketing@ultrasuede.com