Halston (Ewan McGregor) is becoming a regular at Studio 54. Before heading out, he takes a shower and puts on a fragrance by his brand. Unfortunately it’s impossible to tell what fragrance this is because there’s an interesting story behind the men’s scents by Halston.
Halston Z14, with a prominent leather note, was created by Vincent Marcello and Max Gavarry and launched in 1976. It was housed in the so-called “pinch bottle”, which reproduced on brown glass the effect of fingers pinching a soft material.
Too bad that the aromatic green Halston 1-12 was launched on the same year, housed in the same exact bottle (but made of dark green glass)! From the screencap it’s not clear if the glass is brown or green, so it could be both fragrances.
Michael Edwards, author of Fragrances of the World, first published in 1984, revealed in an 2001 interview with Basenotes’ Grant Osborne the truth behind this unusual double launch:
“I had the chance to concentrate on fragrances when I moved to Paris, to direct the international rollout of Halston’s fragrances, Halston (1975), the great women’s classic created by Bernard Chant, and the two men’s entries, Halston Z-14 (still superb) and 1-12 (both 1976). If you wonder why two men’s fragrances, the answer is that Halston couldn’t make up his mind which one he preferred so he said, ‘Launch both’. The names, Z-14 and 1-12? Those were the perfumer’s code numbers.”
