‘Halston (right) worked with the “day to night” idea that fuels modern dressing, decades ahead of its time.’ Photograph: Dogwoof films These designs suited a generation of young women in the 70s who had emancipated their bodies and wanted to celebrate them. Partly narrated by Tavi Gevinson, who plays an imagined archivist, it tells the classic American story of a young man from the Midwest (Iowa in this case) reinventing himself in the Big Apple, first as a milliner at Bergdorf Goodman – designing the much-imitated pillbox hat Jackie Kennedy wore at the inauguration of her husband in 1961 – and then by launching his fashion brand in 1969, as the man behind slinky, minimal and glamorous dresses. The designer, who hit the peak of his career in the 70s, is the subject of a new documentary by Frédéric Tcheng, the man behind Dior and I and Diana Vreeland: the Eye Has to Travel. But, then, there are not many fashion designers like Roy Halston Frowick, otherwise known simply as Halston.

T here can’t be many fashion designers who have been screenprinted by Andy Warhol, namechecked in a classic disco song, referenced in films ranging from Tootsie to John Waters’ underground classic Polyester, guested on middle American gameshow What’s My Line? and had their clothes worn by the A-list at Studio 54.

Imate cradle