Count Givenchy

Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy was born February 21, 1927.  In 1944 he took a position as an apprentice designer as the couture house of Jacques Fath.

In the late 1940’s and early 1950’s he took a series of jobs as an assistant designer- first with Fath, then with Lucien Lelong, Robert Piguet, and Elsa Schiaparelli.  Givenchy’s years as an assistant designer emcompassed the period of the New Look and perhaps instilled in him a sense of romacticism that was to characterize his work for over four decades.

In 1953 he met Cristóbal Balenciaga who quickly became his mentor and lifelong friend.  Givenchy moved his business in 1955 across the street from Balenciaga's atelier, and the two men were in almost daily contact thereafter.  The House of Givenchy was started in 1952 and is famous for designing for Audrey Hepburn in her movies Sabrina (1954), Funny Face (1957), Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), and My Fair Lady (1964).

The designer was generous in acknowledging Hepburn's role in his career, remarking "often ideas would come to me when I had her on my mind. She always knew what she wanted and what she was aiming for. It was like that from the very start." Givenchy's style was characterized by bright cheerful colors and a youthful femininity.   

His father died in a plane crash when Hubert de Givenchy was two, so his grandfather was left to provide for him. His grandfather had been a director of the Gobelin's tapestry works and was a considerable influence on the young Givenchy.  But perhaps the most telling portents of his future career came from his grandmother. Givenchy recalls how, when he was a schoolboy, she rewarded him for good grades by “showing me her treasures - whole cabinets filled with every kind of fabric, all of which left me utterly dazzled”. More than anything else, it was fabric that was the great stimulus to creativity for Givenchy. For him, the most exciting part of a collection wasn't the end result, but the very start of the design process, when new fabrics arrived. “So wonderful to touch. I miss that feeling of touching fabric.” Givenchy has been luckier than most in fashion in that, from an early age, he was in a position to do exactly what he wanted.  Bowing to family pressure, though, he studied law.  When not at his studies, he was working part-time for one of the most successful couturiers in Paris - Jacques Fath. Fath was the first French dress designer to become known in the U.S., through a deal with an American manufacturer to make and sell a range of his designs there, under his own label. After Fath, came Dior.

Givenchy and Hepburn

Hepburn became a life-long friend and help-mate, closer to him than a sister. She phoned him at least twice a week, no matter where she might be. “She was impeccable in every way,” says Givenchy. “Totally loyal and true, she would call at different times, with no pattern, but, as the phone rang, I always knew it was Audrey (Hepburn), before I even picked it up. Often she was very brief, “I don't want to disturb you. I just wanted to say I love you. Goodbye.” And that would be all.” Hepburn's ladylike qualities endeared her to Givenchy as much as her beauty and sophistication. 

Major, John. "Givenchy, Hubert de." The Berg Fashion Library. The Berg Fashion Library, 2005. Web. 17 Jan. 2013. <http://www.bergfashionlibrary.com/view/bazf/bazf00271.xml>.

McDowell, Colin. "Living: Simply Givenchy He Fashioned Audrey Hepburn's Image, Honed the Jackie Kennedy Look and, for More than 40 Years, Dressed some of the World's Richest Women. Twentieth-Century Style Owes an Awful Lot to Hubert De Givenchy. Colin McDowell Meets One of Couture's Last True Aristocrats." The Guardian: 0. Oct 10 1998. ProQuest Central.Web. 17 Jan. 2013 .