Daily Inspiration Quote by Halston

Halston’s line lands like a velvet-gloved warning: talent and taste may get you in the room, but “buzz” and “the right publicist” decide whether anyone notices you’re there. Coming from a designer who turned his own name into a sleek, high-gloss brand, the quote isn’t cynical so much as clinically observant. Show business, in his telling, is less a meritocracy than an attention economy with gatekeepers.

The phrasing is telling. “Not only important but crucial” feels like an escalation born of lived experience - the moment you realize craft is table stakes. “Buzz” is deliberately vague: it’s hype, gossip, a sense of inevitability manufactured through parties, photos, placement, and proximity to power. Halston isn’t praising shallow publicity; he’s admitting the system runs on narrative, and narrative requires a manager.

Then there’s “the right publicist,” a loaded qualifier that exposes the hierarchy. Not any PR will do. You need someone fluent in the codes of elite media, someone who can translate a collection into a storyline editors want, and - more pointedly - someone with access. The “right” person can make a designer seem inevitable, not merely good.

Context sharpens the edge: the 1970s and 80s were when American fashion fused with celebrity culture, nightlife, and mass media, and Halston was both architect and product of that fusion. He’s naming the uncomfortable truth that creative industries often sell myth first, object second. In that world, buzz isn’t decoration; it’s oxygen.