Hubert de Givenchy

Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy (21 February 1927 – 10

March 2018) was a French aristocrat and fashion designer who founded
the luxury fashion and perfume house of Givenchy in 1952. He is
famous for having designed much of the personal and professional
wardrobe of Audrey Hepburn and clothing for Jacqueline Bouvier
Kennedy. He was named to the International Best Dressed List Hall of
Fame in 1970.

History
Hubert James Taffin de Givenchy was born on 20 February 1927 in
Beauvais, Oise into a Protestant family. He was the younger son of
Lucien Taffin de Givenchy, Marquis of Givenchy (1888–1930), and his
wife, the former Béatrice Badin (1888–1976). The Taffin de Givenchy
family, which traces its roots to Venice, Italy (the original surname was
Taffini), was ennobled in 1713, at which time the head of the family
became Marquis of Givenchy. After his father's death from influenza in
1930, he was raised by his mother and maternal grandmother,
Marguerite Dieterle Badin (1853–1940), the widow of Jules Badin
(1843–1919), an artist who was the owner and director of the historic
Gobelins Manufactory and Beauvais tapestry factories. Artistic
professions ran in the extended Badin family. Givenchy's maternal
great-grandfather, Jules Dieterle, was a set designer who also created
designs for the Beauvais factory, including a set of 13 designs for the
Elysé Palace. One of his great-great-grandfathers also designed sets for
the Paris Opera.
He moved to Paris at the age of 17, and he studied at the École des
Beaux-Arts.
During the 1950s and early 1960s, he was considered one of the top
couturiers, very influential. He debuted his prêt-à-porter collection in
1954, at which time his designs were considered to be both
comfortably wearable and well-shaped enough to have "hanger
appeal". He is credited with introducing in 1957 the loose-fitting-but-
narrow-hemmed "sack/sac dress," also called the chemise dress, soon
copied by Christian Dior for his 1957 Fuseau/Spindle line. The same
year, he felt confident enough with his stature to present his collections
weeks after almost all other designers showed theirs, requiring a
second trip to Paris for press and buyers. He created the iconic 'Balloon
coat' and the 'Baby Doll' dress in 1958, making innovative contributions
to the geometric seaming and experimental construction becoming
prevalent at the time. In 1969, a men's line was also created.

Birth of Givenchy Designs

When, as a young man, Hubert de Givenchy was invited to grand

dances, he sat out because he did not dance. He has said he spent the
time “looking.” There was much to catch his eye. The newly optimistic
mood in Paris that followed the Liberation in the late 1940s heralded a
flurry of balls, tactfully held in aid of war charities. Vogue Paris
published in color the Bal des Oiseaux at the Palais Rose in November
1948, the writer extolling the shimmering tones and glints of the
tropical theme in a winter season. Pyramids of flowers and gilded
branches decorated the ballroom, birds taken from their glass domes,
perched like jewels on arboreal resting places. Among titled members
of old French families could be seen Elsa Schiaparelli, her headdress
and fingernails in Shocking Pink, the dancer and singer Josephine Baker
wrapped in a feather boa, and the artist Christian “Bébé” Bérard. Prince
Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge wrote of the period, “Never, since the
Age of Enlightenment has society found itself so close to artists.”
Guests proceeded up the great staircase of pink and gray marble to the
reception rooms, admiring each other’s feathered masks, fans, and
headdresses. Among the photographed guests was Hubert de
Givenchy. The young Frenchman, born 1927, was the scion of an
aristocratic family of practicing Protestants in northern France. A
distinguishing physical characteristic was his great height, standing at
78 inches. Handsome and said to be rather shy, he had a courteous
demeanor. At the ball he can be seen as extending his apprenticeship in
his chosen vocation, haute couture. His interest in women’s fashion and
fabrics had roots in childhood curiosity, and was to lead to a forty-year
pursuit of what he deemed “the most beautiful metier” and his
becoming one of the outstanding masters among a generation of
couturiers that dominated fashion in Paris after the Second World War.
A long view of Givenchy in the pages of Vogue shows how much dress
design owes him. His work carries on the historic traditions of haute
couture as practiced by his mentor and idol, Cristóbal Balenciaga, the
Spanish master.
Givenchy's first designs were done for Jacques Fath in 1945. Later he
did designs for Robert Piguet and Lucien Lelong (1946) From 1947 to
1951 he worked for the avantgarde designer Elsa Schiaparelli. In 1952,
he opened his own design house at the Plaine Monceau in Paris,
concentrating on versatile separates in shirting cotton. Later, he named
his first collection "Bettina Graziani" for Paris's top model at the time.
His style was marked by innovation, contrary to the more conservative
designs by Dior. At 25, he was the youngest designer of the progressive
Paris fashion scene. His first collections were characterized by the use
of rather cheap fabrics for financial reasons, but they always piqued
curiosity through their design.
 The Bettina Blouse, 1952 -
named after Bettina Graziani, a top model in Paris High-buttoned cuffs with black-embroidered
ruffles falling over them, made by Hubert de Givenchy.

When people reference Givenchy today it tends to be in classical terms.

He did not do sartorial bombshells, avoided street style, and was not
tempted by the raunchy. However, we can see him as the precursor of
that most contemporary phenomenon, the entrepreneur designer who
is the brand. Vogue portrays his house style as elegant, refined, and
cultured—qualities that others have recognized in the man. As a
couturier and in private life he inhabited the realms of high fashion,
high art, and high society, all of which come to mind in connection with
his label. He acted as his own ambassador, using his strengths. It’s not
disrespectful to say that few of his compatriot designers would fit the
description accorded him in American Vogue in the mid-sixties as being
“handsomer than almost any movie star.” Vogue has seen him as
couturier, costume designer, interior decorator, art connoisseur,
fashion model, perfumery and cosmetic producer, company director
and, also, as a member of fashionable society. His country houses and
private Paris domain as well as his art collections attest to the joined-
up nature of his aesthetic. And it goes without saying that whatever the
public event or occasion or location at which he appeared, he was
perfectly dressed for it.

Hubert de Givenchy at the

studio of his first salon, rue Alfred de Vigny, Paris, in the early Fifties. He is perfecting the shirring
(gathers) on a work in progress, modeled in house.
His vision was clear from the beginning: he was determined to give
women in the postwar era more plentiful options by designing
“separates”—couture tops and bottoms that could be mixed and
matched at will. The idea for a two-piece ball gown was, at the time,
quite the innovation. “By giving her the opportunity to make
changes in her costume,” one fashion reporter for the Times gushed
after meeting Givenchy, in 1952, “the designer feels that he is
offering his client the pleasure of feeling herself a bit of a creator of
her own style.”

Givenchy’s designs specialized in separates

like these three tops and skirts that could be used interchangeably to make nine outfits.

Still, in the summer of 1953, when the woman who would become
his most important client first walked into his atelier in Paris,
neither was yet a household name. As the well-worn anecdote goes,
when Givenchy heard that a movie actress with the surname
Hepburn was due to pay him a visit, he assumed that he would be
meeting Katharine, and was confused when a woman appeared at
his door “with doe eyes and short hair and wearing a pair of narrow
pants, a little T-shirt, slippers, and a gondolier’s hat with a red
ribbon that said Venezia.” It was the twenty-four-year-old Audrey
Hepburn, fresh off the filming of “Roman Holiday.” She had come to
Paris, at the urging of the director Billy Wilder, to purchase
authentic French clothing for “Sabrina.” Givenchy was charmed by
her, but he was in the throes of preparations for his fall
presentation, so he told her that he had absolutely no time to create
anything new for her to wear. Hepburn begged to try on the existing
sample garments that were hanging around from a previous season,
and, in a mid-century spin on “Cinderella,” every seam fit the
slender actress perfectly. Givenchy was so delighted to see this giddy
actress bouncing around in a black cocktail dress, his signature boxy
neckline flattering her clavicle, that he dropped his work that
evening to take her out to a bistro.
For the next four decades, Hepburn wore Givenchy with near-
religious devotion. Most famously, she wore a Givenchy gown as she
stood idly munching on a pastry outside the Tiffany windows as
Holly Golightly, a scene that stopped traffic on Fifth Avenue as it
was being filmed. Many designers have a muse, but the Hepburn-
Givenchy relationship was something more entwined and symbiotic.
The actress often called the designer just to talk, and she told
reporters that he was a “psychiatrist” as well as a dressmaker. In
Hepburn, Givenchy found an ideal emissary for his theory of
separates; she became known as a jaunty pip in his clothes because
she could move in them. Givenchy’s legacy is the notion of “personal
style,” a concept we now take for granted, but one that was not
baked into fashion in the same way before Hepburn and the little
black dress that helped make her a star. “He is far more than a
couturier,” Hepburn said of Givenchy. “He is a creator of
personality.
Iconic Works
Hubert de Givenchy was famous for his designing work done on various
stars. His taste in fashion was praised by the audience. In Givenchy's
fashion career, he has designed costumes for so many stars, which has
inspired people. Some of his most famous creations are listed below:
While designing, Givenchy developed a good friendship with Andrey
Hepburn. Hepburn won an Oscar in her early days. By chance, Givenchy
became Hepburn's couturier. Since then, Givenchy designed for
Hepburn and the outfit with the long white dress embroidered with
flowers became one of the iconic designs created by Givenchy.
In 1985, Jean Seberg and Deborah Kerr were dressed by Givenchy for
Otto Preminger's adaptation of Francoise Sagan's novel in 1958.
Givenchy chose to revive the Riviera style in the 1960s, consisting of
large cotton or linen shirts.
In 1957, Givenchy designed an elegant dress for Hepburn during their
second major collaboration. The Persian evening wear attracted people,
which counted as a famous work by Givenchy.
In 1961, a long evening gown was designed by Givenchy for the Tiffany
windows. This beautiful gown stole the hearts of people and became
famous in 1961.
In 1963, for Stanley Donen's film, Givenchy designed an electric red suit
with a leopard toque and a straight-yellow coat with the look of a ski,
which became an iconic outfit. The dress was worn by Regina Lampert
in 1963.
Famous collections
The little black dress
Some of his most famous clients include U.S.
First Lady Jaqueline Kennedy—who wore a
Givenchy design to JFK’s funeral—and Grace
Kelly. His most celebrated, perhaps, was
Audrey Hepburn—their friendship lasted for 40
years. It was Givenchy who designed the
iconic, sleeveless ‘little black dress’ worn by
the actress in the ageless film, Breakfast at
Tiffany’s (1961).
 Givenchy’s jumper suit of red
jersey, molded only by the fabric not the cut. “A trend in which the waist is treated even more casually,”
said Vogue. Photograph by Henry Clarke, 1954.
 “An impeccably tailored suit
with a certain softness,” was Vogue’s view. Photograph by Sabine Weiss, 1959.
 Eight of Givenchy’s
fashion sketches from the Fifties. Done in pencil, these lighthearted illustrations were given to the heads
of the studios for practical guidance.
 In bands of rainbow color, a characteristic
Givenchy silhouette done in four tiers—funnel collar, bodice, midrif , and skirt. Photograph by Clive
Arrowsmith, British Vogue, 1970.

“GIVENCHY HELD TRUE TO HIS OWN STANDARDS OF SOPHISTICATED

ELEGANCE AND A TOTALLY POLISHED, TURNED-OUT STYLE OF
DRESSING.” SUSAN TRAIN
Givenchy Muses Throughout History
Looking at the women who influenced the French fashion house
Early in his career, Hubert de Givenchy. had several muses, but when
he was introduced to Audrey Hepburn in 1953, it was kismet. The
actress was his ultimate muse and most enthusiastic supporter
throughout their decades-long partnership. Together, they made
fashion history, with Hepburn wearing his designs in her films and
Givenchy looking to her for inspiration to influence his atelier
collections.
As the Givenchy label transcended the founding designer’s own
lifetime, the role of muse was filled by other iconic women, each
embodying different facets of the French fashion house. With a varied
and versatile archive curated by Givenchy, John Galliano, Alexander
McQueen, Riccardo Tisci, and, currently, Clare Waight Keller, the label
has found success in understated elegance as well as flashy sex-
appeal. Ahead, discover the most influential muses throughout the
different eras of Givenchy.
 Audrey Hepburn, in a Givenchy dress, backstage at
the 1954 Oscars where she won best actress for Roman Holiday.
 Audrey Hepburn wearing the iconic black and white dress in “Sabrina”

The connection between Givenchy and Hepburn helped create an era marked by the elegance and the
grace of wearing haute couture. The clothes the French master, designed for His Muse, are considered
unique and represent the grace of a woman to the finest detail.