Last season, Sarah Burton spoke of the need to establish Givenchy’s “silhouette, its woman, its cut.” Indeed, central to every great fashion house is its woman: a conceived figure upon whom its history, future and, crucially, its clientele are balanced. No one has embodied Givenchy quite like Audrey Hepburn, whose little black dress in Breakfast at Tiffany’s became a fashion sensation. Burton, however, appears intent on revisiting this singular ideal. For the 74-year-old maison, the new Givenchy Woman may not be one woman at all. This season in Paris, Burton explored a multidimensional vision of womanhood, building the collection around precision dressing for lives speeding through, as she put it, “multiple perspectives and perpetual motion.”
Present throughout the collection was Burton’s characteristic adherence to “cut and silhouette.” Her years at McQueen bred a distinct formalism, one that approaches the garment as something almost armorial; this was particularly evident in look four. A classic white shirt, paired with a black pencil skirt, was recut into a silhouette that felt at once protective and imposing. Gone was the gamine femininity embodied by Hepburn; Burton’s Givenchy enlarged the dainty through cut, transforming familiar codes of femininity into something tougher and more commanding.
The theme was introduced with the opening look: a leather shift with fluorescent yellow lining, the zips undone and the straps louchely draped over the model’s shoulders. The effect was not one of sensuality; rather, it evoked a nonchalant toughness. Elsewhere, Mr. Givenchy’s preference for simple dressing, grounded in wearable separates, remained visible. The shirt emerged as a foundational piece for Burton this season, its repeated reinvention demonstrating how a single archetype might accommodate different women. Look nine rendered its oversized silhouette in bubble-gum pink, while look twenty-one recast it in duck-egg leather, both paired with mid-length skirts in darker, monochromatic shades.
Towards the end of the collection, Burton’s formalism extended into eveningwear. Inspired by Alexander Calder’s 1926 Cirque Calder, fluid crêpe gowns in white and royal blue were suspended from gold, wire-like structures that emanated from the shoulders, extending the notion of garments-as-armour beyond the body. Calder used wire to “create personalities”; Burton appeared to subvert the idea, with her structures moving in tandem with the fluidity of the gowns and the bodies beneath them rather than dictating who their wearer should be. This feels particularly fitting given the designer’s collaborative approach to fitting, with models themselves given a say in the cut and fit of the clothes they present on the runway.
The show ended on a high note: two ruffled, asymmetric evening looks in shimmering pink and blue tones, adorned with Hokusai-esque wave motifs. Their scattered use of color marked a departure from the tonal simplicity that had defined much of the collection, yet that was precisely the point.
Burton’s Givenchy Woman is at once severe and soft, armoured and exposed. Rather than sketching a single new archetype for the maison, Burton left room for her wearer to sketch herself.
