Givenchy

Givenchy is a world-renowned French luxury fashion brand founded in 1952 by fashion designer Hubert de Givenchy . It mainly deals in haute couture, ready-to-wear, shoes, perfumes, accessories and cosmetics. It is one of the brands under the world's largest luxury group LVMH. Its representative handbags include Nightingale series, Antigona series, Pandora series, Horizon series, etc.

· Brand History ·

Founder Hubert de Givenchy (1927-2018) was born in Bovet, France. Because his grandfather loved to collect clothes and fabrics from all over the world, he became interested in fashion design at an early age and admired Spanish fashion designer Cristóbal Balenciaga . In order to realize his dream, he enrolled in the National Higher School of Fine Arts in Paris at the age of 17 and began to formally study fashion design.


When Givenchy was studying in Paris , he interned under many well-known fashion designers , including Jacques Fath, Robert Piguet, Lucien Lelong, Elsa Schiaparelli, etc. It was not until 1952 that he decided to leave Elsa Schiaparelli's studio and open his own fashion house at 8 Alfred de Vigny Street in Paris , establishing his own eponymous brand "Givenchy" .

After the establishment of the brand, Givenchy immediately released the haute couture series "Separates" , introducing the concept of "separation" to the fashion industry for the first time and creating a "non-suit" fashion. Two years later, he used machinery imported from the United States to produce clothing and released the first high-end ready-to-wear series "Givenchy Université" , becoming the first haute couture designer in history to launch a ready-to-wear product line.

In the 1950s and 1960s, Givenchy's works were increasingly favored by European and American fashion people and customers, including British actress Audrey Hepburn , former US First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy , and Moroccan Princess Grace Kelly .

Audrey Hepburn was a long-time collaborator and friend of Givenchy, whom she met in 1953 on the set of the film Sabrina : Hepburn purchased several of his outfits for the film. Since then, many of Hepburn's personal and film looks have been designed by Givenchy, including her white wedding gown and blue cape in Funny Face (1957) and her iconic little black dress in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961) .

In the same year that he met Hepburn, Givenchy met his idol Cristobal Balenciaga in New York , and the two worked together to launch the sack dress . Balenciaga became Givenchy's mentor and friend, and he always maintained a friendly competitive relationship with him.

In 1959, Givenchy's headquarters moved to the former Hôtel de Caraman at 3 Avenue George V in Paris , opposite the Balenciaga studio. In the same year, Givenchy's first brand boutique opened on the ground floor of the headquarters. The building was built in 1898 and was once the residence of French aristocrat and politician Maurice de Riquet. It was designed by architect Louis Parent and has been renovated many times. The outer wall of the ground floor has been converted into a display window.

In the late 1960s, the Givenchy brand entered a period of expansion, launching the women's ready-to-wear series "Givenchy Nouvelle Boutique" and the men's clothing series "Givenchy Gentleman" . At the suggestion of Balenciaga, Givenchy began to try licensing operations, gradually adding products such as shoes, jewelry, ties, tableware, and home furnishings. In 1976, Givenchy Inc. officially settled in New York's Fifth Avenue .

Hubert de Givenchy sold the company to the LVMH Group in 1988 , and then continued to serve as the brand's artistic director until his retirement in 1995. He passed away peacefully in Paris on March 10, 2018 at the age of 91. After Givenchy retired, John Galliano , Alexander McQueen , Julien MacDonald and Riccardo Tisci became his successors.

When Riccardo was in office, he launched a number of brand-representative handbags for Givenchy, including the Nightingale series , Antigona series , and Horizon series . The Nightingale handbag was born in 2006 and was named after British nurse Florence Nightingale to commemorate her work and contribution in the Crimean War. The Antigona handbag was released in 2010 and was inspired by Antigone , the daughter of King Oedipus in Greek mythology , implying the independent spirit of modern women.

The current artistic director Clare Waight Keller has been in office since 2017 and launched her first handbag designed by herself in 2018 - the GV3 series . The handbag adopts a three-chamber accordion structure , paired with a vintage metal chain , and the buckle pattern is two symmetrical letters "G ". "GV3" is taken from the initials of Givenchy's headquarters address "3 George V Avenue" to pay tribute to the history of the Givenchy brand.

·Chronology of major events·