The unique friendship that changed fashion

Hepburn & Givenchy

PARIS, March 13, (Agencies): Theirs was one of the most beautiful friendships in fashion history — yet the life-long partnership between the film star Audrey Hepburn and the fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy almost never happened.

The aristocratic French creator, whose death at 91 was announced Monday, at first refused to dress the young Belgian-born actress when they met in 1953, he told AFP.

Only when she took him to dinner and charmed him, did he relent.

“When Audrey came to me to ask me to make her dresses for the film ‘Sabrina’, I didn’t know who she was and I thought she was Katharine Hepburn,” he said.

“Then she arrived, so graceful, young and bubbly and dressed like a young girl would be today,” he said of her two years ago as an exhibition about their friendship, “To Audrey with love”, opened in the Dutch capital, The Hague.

“She was wearing cotton trousers, ballerinas and a T-shirt revealing her belly button, with a Venetian gondolier hat in her hand,” he recalled.

Having only launched his own label the previous year, “I was in no position to take on such a big wardrobe for ‘Sabrina’ and I told her that I couldn’t dress her,” saying that he did not have enough “petites mains” seamstresses in his studio.

Givenchy

Surprising

But Hepburn would not take no for an answer, and invited him to dinner, “which was a really surprising thing for a young well-brought-up woman to do in those days.”

Then over the course of the meal, Givenchy, who was only two years her senior, fell under her charm and he ended up asking her to drop round to his Paris studio the next morning.

“She persuaded me and how wise I was to accept,” Givenchy told AFP.

Opposite Humphrey Bogart and William Holden in “Sabrina” Hepburn wore a Givenchy ivory ball gown with black embroidered flowers that has gone down in film history.

From then on she asked the designer to make all the clothes for her films, and in 1954, the year “Sabrina” was released, she wore one of Givenchy’s dresses to accept her best actress Oscar for “Roman Holiday”.

“Audrey’s style came with a really different silhouette, really of the moment,” Givenchy said of his muse, who he dressed right up to her death in 1993.

Their friendship was based on much more than clothes, however, and Givenchy said he never tried persuade her to wear anything other than “what she liked and what she could wear.”

“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 her friend, who was at her bedside at the end of her life in Switzerland.

In those final days he gave her a navy quilted coat, telling her, “When you are unhappy, wear this and it will give you courage.”

Homage

The house of Givenchy paid homage to its founder in a statement as “a major personality of the world of French haute couture and a gentleman who symbolized Parisian chic and elegance for more than half a century.”

“He revolutionized international fashion with the timelessly stylish looks he created for Audrey Hepburn, his great friend and muse for over 40 years,” the house of Givenchy said. “His work remains as relevant today as it was then.”

Along with Christian Dior, Yves Saint Laurent and mentor Cristobal Balenciaga, Givenchy was part of the elite cadre of Paris-based designers who redefined fashion after World War II.

Givenchy, speaking last year at an exhibition of his creations at the City of Lace and Fashion in Calais, said “too much artifice” detracts from clothing.

“A piece of material has a life. You must never upset it, if you want the material to speak,” he said.

A towering man of elegance and impeccable manners, he forged close friendships with his famous clients, from Hollywood screen sirens of the likes of Elizabeth Taylor and Lauren Bacall to women of state, including Jackie Kennedy and Princess Grace of Monaco.

Born into an aristocratic family in the provincial city of Beauvais on Feb. 21, 1927, Givenchy struck out for Paris in his late teens.

Couturier Jacques Fath hired Givenchy on the strength of his sketches. He spent two years learning the basics of fashion design, from sketching to cutting and fitting haute couture styles.

After apprenticing with other top names, Givenchy founded his own house in 1952.

His debut collection ushered in the concept of separates — tops and bottoms that could be mixed and matched, as opposed to head-to-toe looks that were the norm among Paris couture purveyors.

Working on a tight budget, Givenchy served up the floor-length skirts and country chic blouses in raw white cotton materials normally reserved for fittings.

“Le Grand Hubert,” as he was often called for his 6-foot, 5-inch (1.96 meters) frame, became popular with privileged haute couture customers, and his label soon seduced the likes of Gloria Guinness, Wallis Simpson and Empress Farah Pahlavi of Iran.

But the client whose name would become almost synonymous with the house was Audrey Hepburn, whom he met in 1953, when he dressed her for the romantic comedy “Sabrina.”

Legend has it that Givenchy — told only that Mademoiselle Hepburn would be coming in for a fitting — was expecting the grand Katharine Hepburn. Instead, the diminutive Audrey showed up, dressed in cigarette pants, a T-shirt and sandals.

Thus began a decades-long friendship that saw Givenchy dress the star in nearly a dozen films, including the 1961 hit “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The sleeveless black evening gown she wore in the movie, complete with rows of pearls, elbow-length gloves and oversized shades, would end up becoming Givenchy’s most famous look.

The French president’s office praised Givenchy as a designer whose name became an emblem for French elegance, with one principle: “to respect and celebrate the woman’s body.”

His classical approach eventually “led him to no longer see himself in more unstructured styles” taking over the fashion world, the Elysee Palace statement said.

“France loses a master, the Master of elegance, of creation, of invention,” the statement said, sharing the condolences of President Emmanuel Macron and his wife, Brigitte, to Givenchy’s companion and friends.