Sarah Burton’s exploration of the Givenchy archive quickly zeroed in on a stash of patterns and fabric swatches from founder Hubert de Givenchy’s first collection from 1952. Inexplicably, they were hidden inside a wall in the designer’s first atelier, and unearthed only about a year ago during renovation works.
Burton was astonished, and touched by the handwritten notations on the calico patterns, signaling a deep connection between the French designer and the women he dressed.
This discovery of the origins of the house inspired her to return to the building blocks of fashion: creating new shapes and volumes via draping and pattern making.
“Back to silhouette. This is the backbone of the house today,” she related during a preview, also showing off black-and-white images of that 1952 collection, which resemble stills from a forgotten Hitchcock film. “It’s about silhouette and cut, because the ateliers are amazing here.”
You May Also Like
Making her debut at the storied French house after spending her entire fashion career at Alexander McQueen, Burton nailed it with an exhilarating display of new silhouettes, including dramatic hourglass coats and jackets, geometric babydolls and austere gowns whereby a triangle or square of leather descends from the throat.
The clothes were superb, peerlessly realized and immediately desirable; sometimes young and zesty, but most often the pinnacle of adult sophistication. Here was a show where you could sense how proud the models were to wear them, and the entire cast of diverse sizes and ages looked gorgeous.
Givenchy’s historic couture salons on the Avenue George V were given a fresh coat of white paint, and the lights were turned up bright like a surgical theater to exalt the precision of Burton’s work. Guest including Rooney Mara, Kit Conner, Yseult and Daniel Roseberry were seated on piles of kraft envelopes like the ones containing those 1952 sketches.
With spiraling seams on sleeves and pant legs, Burton brought a new attitude to tailoring, her forte. She also bared waists, backs and legs, bringing a simmering sensuality to the display.
The kind of designer who always has stickpins stashed in her sweater and a pair of scissors in the back pocket of her jeans, Burton left many edges raw on her tuxedo-like jackets and dresses, as if they were still in the process of a fitting.
“It feels a bit like it’s being constructed or being built, and slightly unraveling, in a way which I think the whole world is,” she mused.
She kept embellishments to a minimum – a giant pearl earring here, some feathery mules there – but sparked the collection with bursts of bright yellow, delicate wallpaper-floral embroideries, and puffs of tulle.
While the collection skewed dressy, she included terrific biker jackets – one transformed into an hourglass minidress, another came cropped and with blown-out sleeves – and mesh knits bearing a ghostly stencil of the brand that Burton discovered as a watermark on archival photos.
“The overall feeling I wanted was very, very stripped back to just the silhouette – almost like a fetishization of each object,” Burton said. “It’s not overly styled so there’s a purity to it, which I think is what I liked about [Hubert de Givenchy’s] first collection.”
Most newly arrived creative directors take a few seasons to settle in and find their voice. Burton already feels like a master at this house.
