The Halston Trailer Follows the Disco Designer’s Rollercoaster Career

If you were a member of the Studio 54 set in the late 1970s, there was one name on nearly everyone’s lips: Halston, the creator behind the effortlessly sexy designs worn by Pat Cleveland, Liza Minelli, and Anjelica Huston. The designer’s legacy is so legendary that Ryan Murphy couldn’t help but dig into it for a Netflix miniseries.

In the first official trailer for Halston, Ewan McGregor can be seen as the mononymous designer (born Roy Halston Frowick), and the cast of characters from his life, including Minelli (Krysta Rodriguez), filmmaker Joel Schumacher (Rory Culkin), Halston’s lover Victor Hugo (Gian Franco Rodriguez), and muse Elsa Peretti (Rebecca Dayan) make appearances as well.

The trailer shows the disco-era designer pledging to “change the face of American fashion” while Depeche Mode’s “Enjoy the Silence” looms ominously in the background. The series appears to begin after Halston designed the iconic pillbox hat worn by Jackie Kennedy at President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inauguration, and started his ready-to-wear line sold at department stores and popularized by the Studio 54 regulars. The series also appears to follow the legal battle Halston underwent to take control of his label’s name, and his death from AIDS-related complications in 1990.

Murphy, who serves as Halston’s executive producer, and Daniel Minahan, the series director, began their discussion of how they wanted to represent the designer’s life a few years ago, after working together on The Assassination of Gianni Versace for FX. They knew from the jump that they wanted to cast McGregor, and sourced a lot of the show’s costumes from Halston’s niece. The five-part miniseries will be released on Netflix on May 14.