How Hubert de Givenchy Brought Diversity to the Runway (Reading)

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How Hubert de Givenchy Brought Diversity to the Runway

Hubert de Givenchy, who died Monday at the age of 91, is remembered for, among many other things, his great friendships, most famously with Audrey Hepburn and Jacqueline Kennedy but including pretty much every notable woman of the latter half of the 20th century. Marella Agnelli, Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman, Marlene Dietrich, and Diana Vreeland were all clients; the Countess Mona von Bismarck was even buried in one of his gowns.

He also had a huge impact on the lives of the women he hired in the 1970s, becoming the first designer to use a diverse group of models, and with far greater representation than is seen on today’s runways. As designer Jeffrey Banks remembers, “At one point in the 1970s, his entire cabine was almost exclusively African-American girls—and no one was doing that then!”

Givenchy first saw this possibility when he participated in what became known as “The Battle of Versailles,” a fashion show held in November 1973 between French and American designers, to raise money for the Palace of Versailles’s restoration. It was set up as a clash of couture titans—Yves Saint Laurent, Pierre Cardin,Emanuel Ungaro, Christian Dior, and Hubert de Givenchy versus the upstart American designers: Oscar de la Renta, Stephen Burrows, Halston, Bill Blass, and Anne Klein.

After Givenchy saw the models—including Pat Cleveland, Bethann Hardison,Billie Blair, Alva Chinn, China Machado, Jennifer Brice, and Ramona Saunders—he tossed his old way of presenting couture out the window, and decided to use music and a range of models to present his fashions.

Was this radical for the time? Certainly. And for a French couture house? Absolutely. According to Banks, Givenchy “got a lot of push back when he decided to use black models—some of it from his own customers! But this is what he wanted, he saw this as the future. So he persisted and kept at it and finally his customers fell in line, and the house didn’t suffer.”

Model Pat Cleveland first met Givenchy at the fashion show at Versailles. “I remember walking down the Hall of Mirrors with him—just the two of us, he was walking beside me, with no one else there, it was really magical.”
“After Versailles, he hired all the black girls from America—we were all so skinny and tiny next to him! I remember him putting bows on all the dresses we wore. We had such fun together.

“He was so tall, like a basketball player . . . but he was so elegant. He had the most beautiful hands, he could create the most delicate things with his hands. And he was so kind and generous to everyone. He was such a secure and peaceful man. I’m sure he’s in heaven, creating more beauty.”

1. Who are some of his most important clients?

 2. Why did he have a huge impact in women during 1970s?

 3. What was "The Battle of Versailles"?

 4. What did he do radical for that time?

 5. How does Pat Cleveland describes him?

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