Elsa Peretti, Halston's bohemian muse who went on to become a famous jewellery designer, tried on many of the looks he was dreaming up in his studio and modelled for him. "I found a way to tell Halston's journey first and then used the collections as a way to supplement and highlight some of his signature colours throughout the arc of his career," San Juan explained of the clothes she designed to make up Halston's actual collections. "There were two colour palettes: the colour palette of Halston and what colours were going to create the right moods through certain arcs of his journey and then the colour palette of the collections, which we were really inspired by — whether it was some of the soft pastels that he was using at Versailles or the bright, saturated colours he was using in the '80s."