T here was a principle that fascinated me as a child: the idea that, if it really was Givenchy’s clothes that made Audrey Hepburn Audrey Hepburn, the�🧜�n the clothes themselves could provide a tangible link to her iconic sartorial status.

To own a piece of her clothing, I felt, would reveal the🅷 secret to her fashion legend.

It was an aspiration that, at 10 years old, was not backed by𝔍 pragmatism. But the value and scarcity of these pieces was no match for my juvenile tenacity. Despite the probabilities, nine years later I happened upon the first and most important piece in my : a jewel-encrusted dress of pink silk, designed by Givenchy for Autumn/Winter 🌊1962. It was a gem that I discovered not in the glittering closet of a former socialite or the attic of a bygone Duchess, but on a unassuming online auction. Having recognized it from photographs of Audrey wearing the same design, I tried my hand and placed a winning bid.

I would then, in a turn of events still surprising to me today, later receive confir𒀰mation from Hubert de Givenchy himself that he only made one of those dresses – meaning mine was the very one Audrey had worn.

Upo༺n its arrival the dress, as I unfurled it from layers of white tissue paper, was the realization of a childhood dream, and of Audrey’s secret to st☂yle.

It was a standard of the duo’s perfected formula – a balance of simple silhouette, impeccable quality and a gentle touc♏h of glamor.

This fashion blueprint was first determined over 70 years ago, in July 1953, when Hepburn first met Givenchy in pursuit of real haute couture to wear in her upcoming film Sabrina.

Despite having been somewhat ironically cautioned by Sabrina’s costume designer, Edith Head, to avoid pieces in “dead black or dead white,” (she suggested instead the actress wear “navy blue or charcoal grey”), Audrey instead asserted her own preference for an inky black cocktail dres꧒s Givenchy had designed, which in turn became the precursor for her most recognizable wardrobe staple: the little black dress.

As an extension of this, Audrey also opted for a graphic , Model No. 808 from Hubert’s Spring/Summer 1953 collection, and, perhaps as a way of appeasing thওe film studio’s original request, a charcoal-grey double-breasted suit.

“The way she moved in the suit, she🔯 was so happy,” Hubert recalled in a 1995 article. “She said that it was exactly what she wanted for the movie.”

It was a meeting that would mark the beginning of a 40-year friendship – one that garnered some of the most recognizable looks in cinema history. From the worn amusingly atop a fishing boat in Funny Face – not unlike the 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:ivory silk faille bodice offered at auction at Sotheby’s in 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:The Art of Glamour on June 16 – to the worn to havꦆe breakfast at Tiffany’s, the two pioneered trends in film, as well as fashion.

Such was their influence that for a time Vogue endorsed annual features wherein Audrey could select and model her favorite looks from Givenchy’s latest collections. “I want to make some dream-choices for Vogue,” Audrey sa🌼id in a 1963 edition, “as if I were a kid in a candy stor🐎e.”

One such dream-choice, handpicked from Hube𓂃rt’s Autumn/Winter 1966 collection, was “a loose, languorous Givenchy spiral of pale pink crêpe.” The dress was so minimal in its line that it seemed a single bolt of silk had been wrapped around her body and tied off with a bow.

But in Givenchy’s trademark manner, it was a masterclass of cut and construction: lined with a fine silk organza and supported by an internal bustier of cotton bobbinette. Typically engineering the interiors of his dresses with a corselette of synthetic taffeta, the method instead seen on this dress was reserved for his most weightless-looking co🙈nfections.

Another of her selections was, in a similar vein, made from “mauve-and-silver lamé, spiralled on the body.” With a one-shouldered silhouette, the design was flawless in its simplicity. Wearing it Audrey looked, as Vogue described it, as “ebull﷽ient as the night they invented 🌺champagne.”

The gown Audrey chose for her personal wardrobe, however, was practically a hybrid of these two creations – a one-shouldered coil of pink crêpe finished, in typical Givenchy style, neatly with a bow. It was a dress she later gifted to her friend Tanja Star-Busmann, to whom Audrey frequently donated her enviable Givenchy wardrobe. And it is 168开奖官方开奖网站查询:this gown that is♒ coming toꦛ the auction block – offering another rare and tantalizing opportunity to own that tangible link to one of the most iconic collaborations in fashion history.

“There is no doubt they were made to meet,” concluded former directrice of Givenchy, Dreda Mele, in the 1995 Vanity Fair profile. “She came to him because she was attracted by the image he could give her. And she entered that ima𒈔ge total🐻ly. I repeat, they were made for each other.”

Past Auction

The Art of Glamour: The Collection of Alixandra Fitzwilliam-Tate Baker, Baroness of Gray

2–16 June 2025 | 12:00 PM EDT | New York