A Life Lived in Fashion with Halston Model, Muse and Archivist Chris Royer, Part II (Dressed Classic)

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With over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day, we all get dressed. Hello, I'm Cassidy. And I'm April.

And together, we are fashion historians, friends, and co-hosts of dressed, The History of Fashion, a podcast about why the clothes we wear matter throughout history and around the world. From the cultural and societal to the personal and often political with each episode, we explore the multitude of meanings quite literally sewn into the clothes

we wear. And we meet the mini makers behind the seams, well and lesser known responsible for their creation. Please join us in unraveling the hidden histories residing in your closet for our new season launching May 6th. With more than 575 episodes in our back catalog, our ninth season promises to be our best yet. New episodes are available on Wednesdays, on

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you listen to your favorite shows. Please enjoy one of our favorite episodes from the Dressed archive of over 500 plus shows. Dressed the History of Fashion is a production of Dressed Media. With over 8 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common.

Every day we all get dressed. Welcome to Dressed, the history of fashion, a podcast that explores the who but when of why we wear. We are fashion historians and your host, April Callahan and Cassidy Zachary.

April, I'm going to wager that you and many of our listeners will instantly have an image come to mind when I say fashion, vogue and bath house. Well, I have so many gay friends that might conjure an entirely different image in my mind and happy pride everyone.

We must say this is June. Happy pride. Yes, yes, yes. But I do know the editorial spread of which you speak. Yes, of course, I am speaking about Deborah Turbaville's multi-page bathhouse spread for

the May 1975 issue of American Vogue magazine, which is comprised of some of the most iconic photographs in the history of fashion, capturing an intimate sensual portrait of women, notably taken by a woman, which is really a powerful counterbalance to the in-your-face sexuality that defined Turbaville's contemporary such as Helmut Newton. Front and center of that

spread, April, is today's guest, Chris Royer. And if you joined us Tuesday, you know that Chris was an in-house model and muse for famed designer Holston. She was also part of his in-house creative design team that included Elsa Peretti and Joe Eula. She was also one of his dearest friends. And today we'll learn more about her time as a top model at Vogue, her life as a Holstonette,

and her instrumental role in creating the Holston Archive and preserving his life and legacy for future generations to come. Chris, welcome back to Dressed. And you mentioned Deborah Turpoville's famous bathing suit shots. The bathhouse scene. Yeah, the bathhouse scene. And you are front and center in that spread. Can you talk to us a little bit about that? Because that's a very

iconic fashion history spread. Yes. What's funny is that the actual layout was supposed to be done by Helmut Newton in Monte Carlo. And then it was canceled and switched to Florida with, I think it was Arthur Elgort. And then it was switched out. And then Vogue said, no, we're shooting it. We're going to shoot it with Debbie in New York.

It was like an old swimming park on the west side of the 20s. And we're like, what? Wait a minute. I was like, okay.

So it was basically a lot of, they said it's with Debbie. It was like, okay, I'll do everything for Debbie. And Halston was also friends with Debbie because there's a great picture that Debbie did

when Halston in 74, when Halston got his townhouse, it's a fabulous picture. If you haven't found it, we can send it to you. Halston in the living room with Betsy Theocopolis, Kaiser, and Elsa Peretti. It's a beautiful picture. But getting back to the bathhouse scene, the bathhouse scene was, it's iconic. When we first got into the actual place, it was, I believe it was February,

It was very cold and no heating because it was needed repairs. It was like swimming pools outside and it was for the community. It was like a community bathhouse. We had Polly Melon.

We had Francis Time. We had all the editors on different days coming to the shoot and revising the pieces. They had Sarah Kapp. They had Yasmin and Aziz and myself and Sonny Redmond, the gorgeous red head.

And we were all friends with Debbie. So it was sort of interesting to say, okay, we're going to do the shooting with the bathing suits. And Sandy Littner did the makeup on the shooting. And working with Debbie was always something she'd let you do things. She would say, stand over there. That would be it. Or, you know, maybe she'd say, okay, now you can look.

But she would basically like to move herself. So it was it was funny to see her moving around you or you be moving around her. But in the bathhouse scene, it was so cold that we're like, okay, when are we going to shoot?

When are we going to shoot? And you got doused with water to make the suits cling to you. And it was like, we just all sat there and went, this is something that's going to be an iconic picture.

And we just knew it. And it was like, when I was standing there, Sunny was next to me and I said, what are you doing? You know, she decided to sort of stretch out and move her hands upwards.

So I decided to become more straight and pulled in and just extend my hand out a little to