Hubert de Givenchy, who died at the age of 91 on Saturday, was perhaps best known to the wider public for the elegant designs he created for his muse Audrey Hepburn, including the slinky black dress she wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which is still viewed as the quintessential Little Black Dress.
To this day, Hepburn is widely considered Hollywood’s ultimate fashion icon, which is a testament to Mr. de Givenchy’s craft. Hepburn often also wore Givenchy off-screen, and the unique association between the designer and the actress continues to serve as the perfect example of the power of fashion in Hollywood image-making.
Mr. de Givenchy learned his craft from a fellow master of couture, Cristobal Balenciaga, and together, they revolutionized fashion with the chemise, which flopped at first but ultimately became the shift dress, a staple in most women’s wardrobes.
Equally, Mr. de Givenchy was known for his refined taste which extended to his homes, where he entertained French society from Marie-Hélène de Rothschild and Alexis, Baron de Redé to Hélène Rochas. “He was the ultimate gentleman,” recalled CFDA Chairwoman Diane von Furstenberg.
Mr. de Givenchy received the CFDA’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995, the year he retired. Here, we reprint the tribute that ran in that year’s CFDA Fashion Awards Journal and was penned by Bernadine Morris, the late New York Times fashion critic who herself passed away in late January.
“Tall as a basketball player and elegantly coifed, Hubert de Givenchy has reigned as the leading classicist of the French couture for most of the second half of the twentieth century.
His daytime clothes are calm and satisfying, his evening grand and beautiful. He epitomizes the best in fashion – controlled, classic, luminous.
Well, that’s part of the picture: The distillation of more than a century of couture design and technique. The apogee of style. The development and refinement of dressmaking skills learned from his friend and mentor, Cristobal Balenciaga. His salon graced with women who made best-dressed lists all over the world, women who kept the couture alive, women who invariably greeted his seasonal showings with thunderous applause worthy of a rock-concert audience.
Over forty years, as he made his modest appearance with his last models clad in a laboratory technician’s white coat, shyly acknowledging the enthusiasm, the applause accelerated. Here was the climax of couture week.
It was not always like this. There was a time when the cool, controlled classicist was a wild iconoclast devoted to changing the couture image.
He served his apprenticeship with Elsa Schiaparelli in the early 1950s. The tempestuous Italian designer brought artists like Jean Cocteau into the couture den. She used lavish embroideries, splendid colors and whimsical details to invigorate the fashion scene.
So when he introduced his own collection, he used only white cotton and kept things casual. He didn’t have money for more elaborate fabrics and he always had a knack for casual clothes. Even when he was known for his evening dresses, he could cut a mean raincoat or Norfolk jacket.
Soon, he hooked up with Audrey Hepburn, who remained his friend for the rest of his life. Together, they developed clothes that infected young women all over the world with a fresh sense of style.
In the summer of 1957, with his colleague, Balenciaga, he introduced a style that was to change the way women thought about clothes for the rest of the century. It was the chemise. Eliminating a seam at the waistline was so revolutionary that women balked. The chemise bombed.
But within a few seasons, it returned as the shift to dominate dressing in the late 1960s and to pave the way for the simplicity that dominates today.
So it is altogether fitting that Hubert de Givenchy be honored by the Council of Fashion Designers of America with the Lifetime Achievement Award. In his lifetime he has had it all.
Pictured: Hubert de Givenchy with Audrey Hepburn in his Paris workshop.
