In major shift, Givenchy names female designer
IS AUDREY Hepburn making a return to the house of Givenchy?
On Thursday, the French brand named Clare Waight Keller as its artistic director, responsible for womenswear and menswear, accessories and couture. She will be the first woman to run the creative side of the house, founded by Hubert de Givenchy in 1952.
The announcement marks a new stage in this year’s game of fashion musical chairs, and it is a potentially significant change, both for Givenchy and its incoming designer.
The news came less than two months after Waight Keller, a British designer, officially resigned from Chloé – which is owned by Compagnie Financière Richemont and which announced last week that its new creative director was Natacha Ramsey-Levi. Ramsey-Levi had been creative director of women’s ready-to-wear at Louis Vuitton, a brand that, like Givenchy, is owned by LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.
“I am very happy to have Clare Waight Keller join the LVMH group,” said Bernard Arnault, chairman of LVMH, in announcing the news, which was released simultaneously on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, WeChat and Weibo. “I believe her widespread expertise and vision will allow Givenchy to enter the next phase of its unique path.”
What that next phase is remains to be seen, but the choice of Waight Keller, rumoured during the recent Paris Fashion Week, suggests the answer is not more of the same.
Givenchy’s previous artistic director, Riccardo Tisci, left the brand in February after 12 years. He was responsible for transforming it from the house defined largely by the relationship between de Givenchy and Hepburn, his greatest muse, to a house the Kardashians loved, with all the Gothic hard-edge pop-culture buzz that suggests. Tisci also made it a social media force.
By contrast, there is nothing hardedge about Waight Keller, 46, a lowkey personality often pictured peeking out from under her long brown hair, hands tucked into trouser pockets. As a designer, she has seemed content to let her brands be the stars, and her work, both at Chloé and in her former position as designer of Pringle of Scotland, was marked by a softfocus, accessible elegance with a tailored line. Think of it as slouchy chic.
Indeed, the statement by Philippe Fortunato, chief executive of Givenchy, seemed to suggest a return to the brand’s roots.
“I am very excited to see Clare bring her singular sense of elegance and modernity to Givenchy,” he said. “By exploring our maison’s 65-year heritage and the outstanding savoir-faire of its ateliers, I am convinced Clare will help Givenchy reach its full potential.”
Though Waight Keller, who began her career working at Calvin Klein in New York and with Tom Ford at Gucci, was also in charge of menswear at Pringle, she has never worked with an haute couture atelier before. Givenchy suspended its formal couture shows in 2012, first holding static presentations of the collection instead, and more recently incorporating some couture looks into its menswear shows in January and June. But the fact that Waight Keller has been specifically given responsibility for the highest form of fashion’s art suggests that a return to a more formal couture offering may be in the future.
It also suggests that the idea was false that Waight Keller, who has three children and has recently moved her family to London from Paris, was taking time off after Chloé because of the pressures of today’s fashion cycle. Her responsibilities at Givenchy, after all, will be significantly greater than her responsibilities at Chloé: She will be overseeing at least eight collections a year, as opposed to four.
Along with the move of Raf Simons to Calvin Klein from Christian Dior, the switch by Waight Keller should put to rest the recent theory that designers are rebelling against the relentless demands of the system by stepping off the hamster wheel.
Perhaps most significantly of all, though, her appointment at the helm of one of LVMH’s signature brands is further indication that the largest luxury group in the world is increasingly focused on the talents of women designers and changing a historical pattern that has seen most large brands with significant womenswear profiles run by male creatives.