Adélia Sabatini and Alexandre Samson presenting a Givenchy catwalks book in Milan published by Ippocampo. A conversation on Givenchy’s anecdotes and curiosities
Adélia Sabatini and Alexandre Samson presenting Givenchy catwalks book in Milan
The following dialogue reports the presentation of the Givenchy catwalks book published in Italy by Ippocampo and by Thames & Hudson for the English edition. The publication was presented last Nov. 22 at Givenchy’s store on Via Sant’Andrea in Milan. Attending the launch were Adélia Sabatini, Commissioning Editor for fashion at Thames & Hudson, and Alexandre Samson. fashion historian and author of the book.
Alexandre on the Hubert de Givenchy era
ADÉLIA SABATINI
My name is Adélia. I’m an editor at Thames & Hatton in London. I’m happy to be here tonight with Alexandre Sanson, the author of the book about Givenchy catwalks, to celebrate the launch of the book and talk about the highlights. Alexandre is a curator at the fashion museum Palais Galliera in Paris and probably one of the foremost experts on Givenchy in the entire world, especially after having done this book. So we couldn’t be more pleased to have him here with us today. He co-wrote the book with Anders Hestin-Matten because the book covers the whole Seventy years of Givenchy’s history.
Alexandre wrote the introduction to the book and covered every single collection throughout the whole Hubert de Givenchy era, then John Gagnano, then Alexander McQueen and afterwards with Tim Wark-Pepandas, who’s the fashion reviewer for Vogue, who covered the more recent years. It’s a major research effort to have done this book. It took a few years and we were grateful to the team at Givenchy, especially the Givenchy Archive, who had done work in previous years that made the book possible.
Perhaps Alexandre could tell us a little bit what the research process was like for him when he was given the task to research and write with over a hundred collections?
Alexandre Samson: Givenchy is one of the most structured and the most exactly made for designers
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
It was 120 texts that I wrote working with the collections that Givenchy kept in the archives, which is an amazing archive. And I’m an expert in archives because as a curator I need to go to Dior, Chanel, and all the Cannes Hermès to work with the archives there. I can tell that Givenchy is one of the most structured and the most exactly made for designers. It’s a new one, because it has been structured in 2016.
It’s new. It started only there in the 70s, he opened in the 90s also. They had time to construct something. And Givenchy kept a lot, a lot of documents, all the look books, all the press clips, which sounds basic, but actually it’s rare. Even Dior doesn’t have the whole thing. It was just a treasure to work with, but also a gigantic work of reading every piece of articles that had been written and kept by Givenchy since 1952.
It was a huge challenge. As a curator at Palais Galera, I’m in charge of the haute couture there and on appropriation, so I know well the design of Hubert de Givenchy. I try to also stay focused with the product, that we call that product today, but to stay focused with the design and for designers to feel inspired.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
Were there any surprises in the way people were writing show reviews in those years? I was surprised by the diversity of point of views
John Galliano and McQueen eras at Givenchy
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
In terms of collection because at the time you are like hundreds and hundreds of journalists from all around the world but also all around France and it’s funny it’s a French house so it makes the communication easier and actually they had access to information that was actually brand new for me even as an historian and like little anecdotes about Verde Givenchy and how it was constructed.
And then after with Galliano, of course, with McQueen, and until today with Mathieu Millan, even though it’s understood, he signed it. It had the access and the richness of every point of view. And it was just amazing, it was just a galore of information, of design and description. It was just a joy and heart to sum up into this short text. It brought so much new information that was actually striking for me.
The explosion of Courreges
Seems like the tone of them was quite free, and I think you were quite free in your writing to be able to say it was quite interesting to see when journalists didn’t understand or hated a collection and others loved it, and probably seemed to see the passionate level of the reactions and differing opinions? Yeah, actually I’m not a journalist, I don’t have sponsors working with advertisements and I have to stay free in my writing and be the most obvious possible with the information I have. with Gilles Ranchier, and there was such a patient with me that I had the liberty to write exactly what happened.
For instance, in 1965, when Courreges came with the bomb, it has been rubbish to say that nothing happened. All the journalists saw this collection, and it was like an explosion. And so I mentioned the fact, and I contextualized everything, because all the points of view of all the journalists were only focused on Courreges at that time. And they saw and felt the dynamism and the excitement of this collection. Then it was interesting to see the influence of Courreges on Givenchy too, because it broke something, you know, it’s not… everything is connected in terms of design. And see how Givenchy made it owned by new propositions, new proportions, new prints, and made it his brand new signature from that.
Discovering the early work of Hubert de Givenchy
ADÉLIA SABATINI
I think it’s the advantage of the book being chronological, you can kind of see when you get to the 60s, it’s still Givenchy, but you can see in the way it’s evolving what the fashion was doing at that time. I have to say, for me, the biggest surprise was discovering the early work of Hubert de Givenchy, and I also hadn’t realized, first of all, I didn’t know that he’d worked with Alves Caporelli before. And I didn’t know he was so young when he started. And discovering his early work, when he’s, I think in his twenties, with his first collections that were just so fun and weird, was not at all what I had expected. Did you know them before going into the book?
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
I knew he was young because they always use the name of Enfant Terrible de la Mode, you know, it’s a nickname that we use for Gaultier for a long time. Actually they use the same nickname, you know, since the 1910s, which is absolutely not new. And with every kind of new designer, so we kind of contextualize everything. He was identified like that because he came with prints, you know, he came with pin lemon as prints on embroidered dresses.
When Elsa Schiaparelli promised Givenchy to give him the head of the house
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
As couture, he arrived also with a new proposition, which was mixing haute couture and trésor porté with his first collection. He had the whole possibilities as a client because he was young and he understood the US proposition of ready-to-wear and he wasn’t framed by that. And it was actually a revolution what he proposed at the time because at the time, the thing to wear was just some sweater, some accessories, scarves, just present in the boutique. And the boutique at that time was the first floor of the Maison Couture.
It was actually something super small and disregarded a bit at that time, because you had to wear great couture. And he managed to de-diabolize it, he didn’t come from Givenchy in 1951. He came from Schiaparelli. The funny thing is that I also worked on the early years of Givenchy and Schiaparelli, with the drawings, which are conserved in a museum in Paris, to analyze what was the connection with that. Actually, he took everything from Schiaparelli because he was head of the committee. Elsa Schiaparelli promised him to give him the head of the house.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
When she was going to retire, she was old.
Givenchy moves his atelier across the street from Balenciaga
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
No, no, that quickly, because she was. When she came back from the US after the Second World War, she was just not, she was out of her shoes, and she felt that, and she told that to him. And he was young, tall, beautiful, and charismatic too, so all the clientele loved him. His job was to repurpose all fabrics from the previous collection, and make a present with sweaters, with prints, and with separates. He proposed the first idea for Schiaparelli around 1950, and he just took his signature, what he was known for when he was Schiaparelli, and he made a whole new signature collection.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
And he was quite good luck in Mentos, because after Schiaparelli, obviously he starts his own thing, and his other big, I guess, hero was Cristobal Balenciaga, and they quite quickly formed a friendship, and then we can see in the book when they start to work, I don’t know if you can say work together, but live closely, Givenchy moves his atelier across the street from Balenciaga, and you can see in the book how the style kind of evolves in a more Balenciaga way.
Givenchy, Balenciaga: a pupil of Valencia
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
We can say it’s a duo right now. I discovered that actually they decided to make an alliance. It was actually announced that they met in 1953, when they were young. They had talked and in 1955, they decided to stop these fancy whimsical friends and design and to just be a pupil of Valencia and then the year after they both decided to step out of fashion work so actually something we thought was new was alliance in 1988 for instance.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
You’re still showing the calendar
Givenchy memoires – a huge scandal for everyone, everyone in the press
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
No, for the press because they noticed I was like a copycat in the press and copy for couture in the 50s was a huge thing so they decided to do an alliance and to present to the press one month after the bias, which was a huge scandal for everyone, everyone in the press. All the egos of the journalists were hurt so much.
And a lot of the press stopped to do reviews, except for Asperger’s and Vaux, because they were the first access to end the Wounds Where They Live, and Wounds Where They Live journalists, who even disguise themselves. In 1958, for instance, a woman dressed as a man came and said she was a buyer, she should work for me, just to discover the collection. It was the most exciting collection in town at the time. And it was so strong that they even invented design together.
Balenciaga was reserved for mature women, something that we maybe don’t have in mind, but Balenciaga in the 50s, 60s was something you had to deserve as a woman.
I worked with Jacqueline de Ribes, who’s a comtesse de Ribes. She was a huge French chaucelier and global chaucelier, and shot by Jacques Donne, for instance. And she told me that at one time she wore, at the age of 20, a Balenciaga dress, which was shot in Vogue, and her mother went to her and say, who do you think you are? You don’t deserve to wear Balenciaga. It’s something you have to deserve.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
Because she was too young.
Audrey Hepburn, Givenchy and the Givenchy-a-ga
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
She was too young; she said, go to Givenchy. She was ready for the younger, fresh girls, you know, the up girl, Audrey Hepburn, clearly, and for more mature women. At the edge, you have to remember that the top of women were 40s. You were high, high, high in fashion and beauty and class. You were 40.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
That was the golden age.
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
Yes, it was. And you were a baby in the 20s. You were considered by people. And it was so strong that they did this in design also. And it’s nothing bad to say, actually, because a lot of people say in history also that Jacques Chirac is a copycat to Balenciaga, or a cupid to Balenciaga. But actually, when Braque worked with Picasso and did a duo with the first cubism, I challenge people, even art historians, to distinguish both of them sometimes, because they are so in a dialogue.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
You mean the paintings could be from any of them?
Yeah. Because they are so close to each other. They show the real me. They show their drawings of each other. It was so strong, it has a press entitled, French press entitled, the Spring-Summer 1958 Babydoll Collection by Barry Seagal. Givenchy had the same babydoll in the collection. They called it Givenchy-a-ga. So when you know the collaboration with brands today, and the recent collaboration, nothing new actually. But with this idea in mind, that it was made on a go-go, it was something thoughtful about, and constructed to cover the whole idea.
The Givenchy exhibition 1997 at Palais Galliera
ADÉLIA SABATINI
That was not out of a marketing collaboration, it was just because they respected each other and liked working together, or?
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
We don’t know that, but they have a close relationship. A lot of the French press said in the 50s that Ballantyre wanted to close the doors because he lost his lovers in the 40s and Givenchy gave him life again in the 50s and it’s actually written by a huge newspaper called Combat at that time in France, which is very, I think, when you study closely the drawings of each, you discover just the
ADÉLIA SABATINI
And there’s also quite a big switch when the Hubert de Givenchy family retires and there’s a brief John Galliano moment. And obviously you’ve done the wonderful exhibition 1997 at Palais Galliera. I wonder if you could talk to us a little bit about that moment in fashion where there’s a massive change of the guards with the British designers and what happens at that time?
Alexander McQueen direction for Givenchy
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
Hubert de Givenchy stepped out in 1955, was immediately replaced by John Galliano, which was no secret for anyone that Gagnon wanted Dior absolutely and everything he did for Givenchy was a bit of a re-force of Dior. He wanted that very, deeply since his beginnings. beginning. And then he was replaced by Alexander McQueen and it was a strong collection, and it actually helped Alexander McQueen to grow. About Givenchy because it brought to Givenchy something new, which was scandal, which was this idea of pure sexuality and something modern for a house built since 1951.
It was strong. And I think it helped those, because Alexander McQueen later said that he needed Givenchy to master his flute technique. Because who is the master of tailoring? But all the flute technique, all the couture skills, he learned that at Givenchy.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
Because he studied tailoring in Saint-Laurent. And then I think Givenchy is still the only couture he ever did that was only for Givenchy, right? He never did couture.
Costume classes of course for McQueen
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
No, he did costume classes of course for McQueen, but no couture as a show in Paris. And there were some lovely moments if you look at the shows on YouTube or some pictures. I think at least a few shows McQueen at the end came out with the heads of the couture attorneys as a sign of respect for how much he was learning a dialogue.
Without spilling the water, French. That’s also what it implies in the book. It’s something, you know, we always speak about fashion, about an industry right now, because I think we’re all obsessed with Monet, and because it’s a crisis, and blah, blah, blah.
But as an historian, I can tell you that it’s not. It’s hard because industry takes a bit to design the creativity of. And I think you have to remember that it’s a huge corporation of people who know each other, who work in several houses, it’s a huge family, everything is connected with emotions. And it’s strong when you look at the whole collection of McQueen, again in the two, and after McDonald.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
It’s a hard question, but if you had to pick one McQueen collection, which one do you think was the most memorable or interesting?
Givenchy and the Mark Roscoe tribute in 1971
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
His last collection was mature and on point. He did something about the skills, about the perfection of couture, to the maximum.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
I think it’s one where it was quite hard to find photos of. So that’s probably a discovery for most people. And how about the Udallo Gionchi era? Do you have some highlights or favorite moments?
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
I love the Mark Roscoe tribute. He did it in 1971, just the year after the death of Marc Roscoe, and of course, you could say there’s nothing new. Ismael Aron made the Piet Mondrian tribute in 1965. Less than a year here. But actually, Ismael Aron got inspired by the 1930s when he was a Piet Mondrian. Piet Mondrian was already a big star.
He was a star, of course, in the hard world. They knew him. But for the Grand Public and for the Plains Couture, it was something a bit new. I think it was a bit bold move from him, which was honest because he collected my first work, thanks to a friend, Benny Mellon, who was an American patron, and who awarded many, many paintings to Franco, and she had the biggest Franco in the world, and that’s where I came from as inspiration
Givenchy and the Balenciaga clients
ADÉLIA SABATINI
She was a big Givenchy fan, didn’t she?
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
She was a tremendous Balenciaga client like every client when it closed in 1968 said, who came to me?
ADÉLIA SABATINI
All the Balenciaga clothes, Givenchy got the clientele
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
He told the clientele to go to Givenchy
Saint Laurent, building a legacy – the Russian Opera Bellegus
ADÉLIA SABATINI
It’s a good endorsement And there are other than that, kind of artistic maybe not an inspiration. Which I think I expected, too. I kind of knew more from Yves Saint Laurent and not from Ginochi.
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
Yeah. It’s also a new discovery that storytelling is to the story. And I think Yves Saint Laurent, Christian Dior, Carol Chanel, with all the respect I have for the house and narration I have, had the time to construct a storytelling. And actually, storytelling is not a proper story. It’s considered to be fantasized. And when you work in detail, you discover that in the mid-’70s, Kardash decided to keep clothes on the runway to build a museum.
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
It was a new model acquisition which came from the end of the 60s, just noticing that culture is dying, so we’re going to lose everything. All the museums and the Met and Galliera also, in fact, immediately constructed apartments in the late 60s. And then, the allergy got that because it was near to the Met.
Of course, Saint Laurent built this huge legacy, and in this collection we know that the Russian Opera Bellegus, the Russian collection is 76 and for the Fall Winter, I can’t remember the collection, the Fall Winter is 76, this Russian collection, the Spring Summer 77 is Spain and Fall Winter 77 is China. And when you look at Givenchy, it’s the same inspiration, exactly the same thing.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
At exactly the same time.
Saint Laurent? Did you send like spies in the studio to make things?
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
Exactly the same time. All the news came to me, I don’t know about Saint Laurent, but Alderniz came to Givenchy, and it’s in the press, to ask, did you copy M. Saint Laurent? Did you send like spies in the studio to make things?
ADÉLIA SABATINI
It’s a bold question.
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
It was a bold question at the time, it was 77. He said, no, but unlike M. Saint Laurent, I will be honest with the fabrics and the theme of Swing’s Four Winters 1976 was Russia.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
But set by the people who made the haute couture fabrics, not set by Saint Laurent or by Le Vendange.
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
No, absolutely not. Everything came at this moment and actually it has to remind the whole theme of inspiration and appropriation but everything, everything came from industry, textile industry in France and in Italy. These two sorts of things, and it was just, honestly, without a doubt.
ADÉLIA SABATINI
Commissioning Editor for fashion at Thames & Hudson and a former contributor to Glass and Apollo magazines. She is also co-author of Dior Catwalk.
ALEXANDRE SAMSON
Fashion historian, curator and head of the contemporary design department at the Palais Galliera, Paris Fashion Museum.
