‘LITTLE BLACK DRESS’ DESIGNER GIVENCHY DIES AT 91
PARIS: Hubert de Givenchy, the aristocratic French fashion designer famous for the “little black dress” and styling Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy, has died aged 91, his partner said on Monday (Tuesday in Manila).
Givenchy set the template for ladylike chic in the 1950s and 1960s, dressing everyone from Princess Grace of Monaco to Jane Fonda.
His longtime partner, the former haute couture designer Philippe Venet, announced his death through the Givenchy fashion house, saying he had died in his sleep on Saturday.
“It is with huge sadness that we Givenchy has died,” it said in a statement to Agence France-Presse.
With his perfect manners and old- school charm, the tall and handsome count was the very acme
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.
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 isn’t a couturier a magician of sorts, who creates illusion and perhaps beauty itself?”
designers to use black models, and in 1986 used only black models for one collection.
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 revolutionized fashion,” his label said Monday.
Legendary Italian-born creator Valentino told Agence France-Presse 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
Givenchy’s current British-born designer Clare Waight Keller said that its founder was “not only one - ures of our time, whose legacy still he also was one of the chicest, most charming men I have ever met.
- tleman that will stay with me forever,” she added.