We Hail You, Hubert de Givenchy!
Who was Hubert de Givenchy?
He was an amazing couturier with over-the-top taste. Over-the-top taste, in our books, equals simplicity!
Yahoo news has this to say about him:
“He was the gentleman who is famous for “the little black dress” and styling Jackie Kennedy and Audrey Hepburn. Givenchy set the template for ladylike chic in the 1950s and 1960s, dressing everyone from Princess Grace of Monaco to Jane Fonda.
With his perfect 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 his muse Hepburn, whom he met while she was making Billy Wilder’s Oscar-winning comedy “Sabrina” in 1953, that helped make him a fashion legend.
Hubert de Givenchy with Audrey Hepburn
The narrow-collared suits and slim woollen dresses Givenchy designed for the gamine actress in “Funny Face” and “How to Steal a Million” made both of them style icons.
The black sheath dress Givenchy created for the opening scenes of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” was perhaps the most famous “little black dress” of all time — even if fellow 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 him.
“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 one of the first big designers to use black models, and in 1986 used only black models for one collection.
US first lady Jacqueline Kennedy adopted the Givenchy look for her White House years, sticking to a uniform of shift dresses, pillbox hats and low-heeled pumps.
The red coat she wore on the campaign trail for the 1960 presidential election was a Givenchy copy.
On a state visit to France the following year, Jackie 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 Monday.
Legendary Italian-born creator Valentino told AFP that he tried to get a job with Givenchy when he was 17. “Unfortunately 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 current British-born designer Clare Waight Keller said that 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.
“The definition of a true gentleman that will stay with me forever,” she added.”
He passed on over the weekend but, of course, he will always be with us through his impeccable taste!
Live on, Givenchy, live on!
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That little pink number you had on at dinner last night must have been one of his. You were lookingvyour ever-do-chic self, Lady Page.