In April of 1952, at the age of twenty-five, Hubert de Givenchy arrivedat the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, in New York, with eight elaborate couturegowns. He was making his American début at the first annual April inParis Ball, a high-society spectacle that was meant to strengthenFranco-American relations through the power of good old-fashionedbeau-monde hedonism. The event featured, among other attractions, zooanimals rented from the Ringling Brothers circus; a living tableau inwhich Sir Laurence Olivier and Rex Harrison played François I and HenryVIII; a gift of fine French perfume for the women and neckties made inLyon for the men; and a cavernous ballroom transformed to resemble thegardens at Versailles. And yet the most memorable impression of thenight was, perhaps, the one left behind by the six-foot-five wunderkindcouturier. During the fashion-show portion of the evening, the crowdcooed over Givenchy’s meticulously embroidered boleros and a starchedwhite peplum cape that looked like stiff meringue.
Givenchy, who died on March 10th, at the age of ninety-one, was born inBeauvais, France, the grandson of a tapestry-maker, and blazed throughteen-age apprenticeships at the houses of Jacques Fath, Robert Piguet,and Elsa Schiaparelli before striking out on his own, in February of1952. His vision was clear from the beginning: he was determined to givewomen in the postwar era more plentiful options by designing“separates”—couture tops and bottoms that could be mixed and matched atwill. The idea for a two-piece ball gown was, at the time, quite theinnovation. “By giving her the opportunity to make changes in hercostume,” one fashion reporter for the Times gushed after meetingGivenchy, in 1952, “the designer feels that he is offering his clientthe pleasure of feeling herself a bit of a creator of her own style.”
Still, in the summer of 1953, when the woman who would become his mostimportant client first walked into his atelier in Paris, neither was yeta household name. As the well-worn anecdote goes, when Givenchy heardthat a movie actress with the surname Hepburn was due to pay him avisit, he assumed that he would be meeting Katharine, and was confusedwhen a woman appeared at his door “with doe eyes and short hair andwearing a pair of narrow pants, a little T-shirt, slippers, and agondolier’s hat with a red ribbon that said Venezia.” It was thetwenty-four-year-old Audrey Hepburn, fresh off the filming of “RomanHoliday.” She had come to Paris, at the urging of the director BillyWilder, to purchase authentic French clothing for “Sabrina.” Givenchywas charmed by her, but he was in the throes of preparations for hisfall presentation, so he told her that he had absolutely no time tocreate anything new for her to wear. Hepburn begged to try on theexisting sample garments that were hanging around from a previousseason, and, in a mid-century spin on “Cinderella,” every seam fit theslender actress perfectly. Givenchy was so delighted to see this giddyactress bouncing around in a black co*cktail dress, his signature boxyneckline flattering her clavicle, that he dropped his work that eveningto take her out to a bistro.
For the next four decades, Hepburn wore Givenchy with near-religiousdevotion. Most famously, she wore a Givenchy gown as she stood idlymunching on a pastry outside the Tiffany windows as Holly Golightly, ascene that stopped traffic on Fifth Avenue as it was being filmed. Manydesigners have a muse, but the Hepburn-Givenchy relationship wassomething more entwined and symbiotic. The actress often called thedesigner just to talk, and she told reporters that he was a“psychiatrist” as well as a dressmaker. In Hepburn, Givenchy found anideal emissary for his theory of separates; she became known as a jauntypip in his clothes because she could move in them. Givenchy’s legacy isthe notion of “personal style,” a concept we now take for granted, butone that was not baked into fashion in the same way before Hepburn andthe little black dress that helped make her a star. “He is far more thana couturier,” Hepburn said of Givenchy. “He is a creator ofpersonality.”
Givenchy was as avid a businessman as he was a designer. In witnessingHepburn’s rise firsthand, he saw the limitless potential of brandrecognition. In the seventies, he launched a menswear line, officiallylicensed his name, and became one of the first designers to put hisbrand on more than just clothing—Givenchy silverware, china, hoteldraperies all eventually became available. The name “Givenchy” becameshorthand for bubbly, au-courant French chic with a dash of Old Worldsophistication. After Givenchy’s retirement from designing, in 1995, thehouse (which he sold to LVMH, in 1988) became a breeding ground foryoung, avant-garde designers launching their careers—John Galliano,Alexander McQueen, Julien Macdonald, and then, for twelve years,Riccardo Tisci, who rebranded the house with ornately gothic gowns indelicate oxblood and putty-colored gauze. (It is said that Tisci was theonly person who did not mention Hepburn in his interview, and thisradical omission clinched his job.)
Tisci left Givenchy in 2017, and now the house has its first woman atthe helm, Clare Waight Keller, a British whiz kid who, in the mold ofthe house’s namesake, had done stints at Calvin Klein, Gucci, Pringle ofScotland, and Chloé by the age of forty-one. In October, Kellerpresented her first collection, after an hour-long meeting with theninety-year-old Givenchy. She told the press that she had pored over hisearly sketches and found that he designed from the shoulder down, so shehad done the same. What emerged was a collection that returned to itemswith square, sleek silhouettes—many of them separates—in winking homageto Givenchy’s early work. Keller showed a navy double-breasted dress, ablack-and-white evening gown paired with cowboy boots, and a flutteryco*cktail dress the color of Red Hots with a neckline similar to the oneHepburn wore in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” This sleek but youthfulcollection débuted at the Palais de Justice, a grandiose building in thecenter of Paris, where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned while awaitingher execution. It had never been used for a fashion show before, but, asin the case of the April in Paris Ball, the house of Givenchy has nevershied away from spectacle. The elder designer did not attend the show,but Keller said later that she felt she had his blessing.
