Hubert de Givenchy dies, but little black dress lives on as style icon
Hubert de Givenchy, the aristocratic fashion designer famous for Audrey Hepburn’s ‘little black dress’, has died aged 91.
Hubert de Givenchy, the aristocratic fashion designer famous for Audrey Hepburn’s “little black dress” and for styling Jackie Kennedy, has died aged 91, his partner said yesterday.
Givenchy set the template for ladylike chic in the 1950s and 60s, dressing everyone from Princess Grace of Monaco to Jane Fonda.
His partner, former haute couture designer Philippe Venet, announced his death through the Givenchy fashion house, saying the Frenchman had died in his sleep on Saturday. “It is with huge sadness that we inform you that Hubert Taffin de Givenchy has died,” the statement said.
With his manners and old-school charm, the tall and handsome count was the very acme of French elegance and refinement.
But it was his 40-year friendship with Hepburn, whom he met while she was making Billy Wilder’s Oscar-winning comedy Sabrina in 1953, that helped make him a fashion legend. The narrow-collared suits and slim woollen dresses he designed for her in Funny Face and How to Steal a Million made them both style icons.
The black sheath dress Givenchy created for the opening scenes of Breakfast at Tiffany’s is perhaps the most famous “little black dress” — even if Coco Chanel is credited with inventing the garment.
“His are the only clothes in which I am myself. He is far more than a couturier, he is a creator of personality,” Hepburn once said of Givenchy.
“To dress a woman is to make her beautiful,” Givenchy once said. “In haute couture, we are cosmetic surgeons, erasing imperfections and refining the silhouette ... for isn’t a couturier a magician of sorts, who creates illusion and perhaps beauty itself?”
Givenchy was among the first major designers to use black models, and in 1986 used only black models for one collection.
US first lady Kennedy adopted Givenchy’s style, sticking to a uniform of shift dresses, pillbox hats and low-heeled pumps. The red coat she wore on the campaign trail in 1960, before her husband’s election, was a Givenchy copy.
On a state visit to France the following year, Kennedy made a famously grand entrance in a Givenchy white silk faille dress at a state dinner at the Palace of Versailles, looking as regal as any European monarch’s consort.
“Hubert de Givenchy was a symbol of Parisian elegance for more than half a century ... who revolutionised fashion,” his label said in a statement yesterday.
Italian-born creator Valentino said he tried to get a job with Givenchy when he was 17. “He did not hire me ... but I kept admiring his vision, his perfection of cut and elegance. Like me, he always respected the woman’s body, never inflicting what was cool but only what was flattering.”
Givenchy’s British-born designer Clare Waight Keller said its founder was “not only one of the most influential fashion figures of our time, whose legacy still influences modern-day dressing, but he also was one of the chicest, most charming men I have ever met”. She added: “The definition of a true gentleman that will stay with me forever.”
Givenchy was forced to retire in 1995 when his contract was not renewed by the LVMH group that had bought his fashion house almost eight years before. He was replaced by John Galliano.
With typical discretion, Givenchy made no comment, only saying he had not been consulted about the appointments.
Yet two decades on, his restrained style still informs the way the Queen and older American and Chinese socialites dress.
Givenchy’s final couture show in July 1995 was an emotional moment, with his fellow couturiers Yves Saint Laurent, Paco Rabanne, Christian Lacroix and Valentino taking front-row seats in a packed salon in the opulent Grand Hotel at the Paris Opera.
Givenchy took his bow on the catwalk in his atelier’s smock and, with characteristic modesty, brought on all his “petites mains” seamstresses to share the applause.
AFP
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