MerkFrench
Givenchy
3 actieve items
The House of Givenchy opened its doors in Paris in 1952, when Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy, then just 25 years old, launched his first collection under the name "Les Séparables." Having trained under Jacques Fath, Robert Piguet, Lucien Lelong, and Elsa Schiaparelli, he brought a rare technical grounding to what became an immediate sensation - airy cotton blouses, high-waisted skirts, and a vocabulary of separates that challenged the rigid silhouettes dominating post-war Paris.
The house gained its most enduring association the following year, when Hubert de Givenchy dressed Audrey Hepburn for the film Sabrina in 1953. Their collaboration ran for decades and produced some of cinema's most referenced images, including the black Givenchy gown worn in Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961). Hepburn wore Givenchy at her wedding, at awards ceremonies, and in much of her private life - an unusual and genuinely mutual friendship between a designer and a muse. The house also dressed Jacqueline Kennedy.
Hubert de Givenchy retired in 1995, having sold the couture division to LVMH in 1988. The fragrance arm had split off earlier, passing to Veuve Clicquot in 1981 before also coming under LVMH. Since Givenchy's retirement, the house has cycled through a succession of creative directors who each shifted its direction considerably. John Galliano arrived in 1995, followed quickly by Alexander McQueen in 1996, whose darkly charged collections brought significant press attention. Julien Macdonald followed briefly, and then Riccardo Tisci held the position from 2005 to 2017, reshaping the brand around a gothic-tinged streetwear aesthetic that significantly expanded its global reach.
Clare Waight Keller became the first woman to hold the artistic director role in 2017, returning the house to a cleaner, more architectural elegance before departing in 2020. Matthew Williams, known for co-founding streetwear label 1017 ALYX 9SM, took over that year and left at the end of 2023. In September 2024, Sarah Burton - previously at Alexander McQueen for over two decades - was appointed creative director, bringing the house full circle given McQueen's own history with the brand.
At Nordic and Swedish auction houses, Givenchy items appear regularly in fashion and accessories sales. The 40 items recorded on Auctionist span ready-to-wear, handbags, scarves, and jewelry, trading across houses including Kaplans Auktioner, Stockholms Auktionsverk, Gomér & Andersson, and Helsingborgs Auktionskammare. Prices at auction reflect the secondary market for vintage and contemporary Givenchy pieces, with top results including a Clare Waight Keller-era graphic T-shirt that sold for 3,700 SEK and a sleeveless dress that achieved 2,200 DKK. The category spread - with the majority catalogued under Miscellaneous - suggests that much of the Givenchy material appearing at Nordic auctions is fashion-adjacent rather than runway archive.