Hubert de Givenchy Dies: French Fashion Designer & Stylist To Audrey Hepburn, Jackie Kennedy Was 91
French fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy, known for creating iconic looks for Audrey Hepburn and Jackie Kennedy, has died in France. He was 91.
His companion, Philippe Venet, told AFP that Givenchy passed away in his sleep on Saturday. Luxury goods firm LVMH, which has owned the House of Givenchy since 1988, called the designer “a gentleman who symbolized Parisian chic and elegance for more than half a century. He will be greatly missed.”
Givenchy’s designs were a regular feature on red carpets over the years, but he was best known for the celebrated “little black dress” worn by Audrey Hepburn in the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Hepburn and the designer formed a lasting friendship that helped cement his place in fashion and cinema history. He designed her suits and woollen dresses for the 1957 musical Funny Face and the 1966 heist caper How to Steal a Million.
Givenchy heralded from an aristocratic background and worked alongside Christian Dior after World War II. He was employed by the designer Elsa Schiaparelli before leaving to found his own fashion house in 1952.
His designs have endured. Black Panther‘s Chadwick Boseman was among those to wear a custom Givenchy design on this year’s Oscars red carpet.
LVMH chief Bernard Arnault told AFP, “Among the designers who definitively placed Paris at the height of world fashion in the 1950s, Hubert de Givenchy gave his house a place apart. … Givenchy knew how to marry two rare qualities: to be innovative and timeless.”
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