“To go forward, you have to go back to the beginning. To me, that’s about the atelier. It’s the heart and soul of Givenchy.”
Sarah Burton
A cache of Hubert de Givenchy patterns was recently discovered walled up in a hidden cupboard at his first maison at 8 Avenue Alfred de Vigny while it was being renovated. The brown paper packets proved to contain calico patterns from his 1952 debut collection, which he showed to audience packed into his atelier.
For Sarah Burton, it triggered a tangible connection with her own way of working: on the stockman, in fittings, between the studio and the atelier. Purposefully close-up, her first collection as Artistic Director walked intentionally, with zero distractions, through the house at 3, Avenue Georges V, the historic address of Givenchy since 1955.
“It’s my natural instinct to go back to pattern-cutting, to craftsmanship. To cut, shape and proportion. It’s what I feel, how I work, and want to do.”
Starting from the body up – from the imagery of the studio stockman, stamped GIVENCHY 1952- the rhythm of her collection evolves around tailoring, merging and counterpointing masculine techniques with feminine shape. Through salons stripped-back to their original beauty, a sense of powerful femininity is constructed, re-cut, played with, and enjoyed from all angles from a woman’s point of view.
