My Brand: Givenchy

We're all sat at the table in the Project Runaway-esque session with Sharon. She's really on the ball today, she's flying through all of the slides at a hundred miles an hour and I'm feeling pretty chilled out because I've got five face charts with me. The ones that you know, I poured my creative soul into. I was kind of hoping that the session would be going through the face charts in front of the group again, because I found that the most helpful part of the critiques last semester. During the creative process it was great to have feedback in this form, I learned so much from this.

At the rate of this seminar, I don’t think this is going to be the case by any means.

“BRANDS” She spins around from the board and has this smile (I’m now regarding this at Sinister Smile, because no good came from this)

I’m sat in the middle of the ‘U’ Shaped table situation and she begins with the people closest to her

“MAC!”

Oh crumbs (It’s so hard typing this without using profanity. So please feel free to mock)

She prowls the table to the next two

“Illamasqua”

Well kiddies, it was at this point I nearly had the mother of all tantrums because foolishly I had designed my face charts with these two brands in mind. I try and keep it positive while I sink lower in my chair. She goes down the list and any of the remotely ‘quirky/interesting’ (Read as: My comfort zone) brands are gone.

Are you ready for it? Givenchy. My jaw drops, my face contorts and if looks could kill everyone in the room would be gone.

I can’t even pronounce that. Do they even do make up? When did that become a thing? Ah yes, it’s one of the reasons I don’t like mega brands like this doing make up. You’re paying for the brand not the quality of the product. It’s so not me. I’m not elegant, posh or classy. How is my sea sprite going to work?! I think the gut wrenching answer is: It isn’t.

I have a mega sulk on. I’m not a happy bunny, I feel so out of my comfort zone. I ask Sharon if I could base my shoot on a past campaign and I was INSTANTLY shot down.

“Why look back darling?” I’m pretty sure this woman has been sent to test me in every way possible. I thought that I could have used the Alexander McQueen era of Givenchy, make it a bit quirky. NOPE.

“Nikerlina, it’s ‘Ji-Von-She’ If you were to say ‘Give-in-chy’ in a room of professionals they’d turn their backs on you” I literally had a teenage strop.

I flounce into the library adamant that I’m going to suck terribly at this unit now. Which feels awful because I’ve got a real soft spot for photography now. I enjoy the process immensely, the planning, the research, the shoot and the outcome. It’s all beautiful. I don’t want to mess it up and finish without a first.

I find one of the most ridiculously big books I’ve ever seen in my life about Givenchy. My heart isn’t in this as I’m reading about him. There are quotes from him that I’m instantly finding offensive. Time to go back to this with a fresh mind methinks.

Photo Credit : Rex Features

• In 1927, he was born Hubert James Taffin de Givenchy to an aristocratic family in the French city of Beauvais. The family's nobility stemmed from his father's side from the 18^th Century, and artistic professions ran through his mother's hereditary line. Having lost his father in 1930, he was raised largely by his mother and maternal grandmother from whom he inherited his passion for fabrics. Inspired, Givenchy left his hometown at the age of 17 for the vibrant opportunities of Paris.

• Upon moving to Paris in 1944, Givenchy enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. He began his career as an apprentice of Jacques Fath in 1945, and continued to learn the art of the couturier over the following years from Robert Piguet, Lucien Lelong and legendary Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli.

• The designer's statuesque height - he was 6' 6" - made an immediate impression on Paris, where he soon made a name for himself as a talent to watch.

• In 1952, he established his couture house, la Maison Givenchy, launching his debut Separates collection of light floor-length skirts and stunning blouses including the feted Bettina Blouse, named after model of the day Bettina Graziani. Two years later in 1954, Givenchy became the first couturier to present a luxury ready-to-wear line.

• He inherited his design philosophy of simplicity from his friend, idol and mentor, Cristóbal Balenciaga. "Balenciaga was my religion," he toldWWD in 2007. "There's Balenciaga, and the good Lord."

• Givenchy first met his iconic muse, Audrey Hepburn, in 1953, in a romantic twist of fate that rivals any of her films. He had in fact been expecting Katharine as the Mademoiselle Hepburn he was to dress for the forthcoming picture Sabrina. Audrey is said to have arrived in a tied-up T-shirt, tight trousers, sandals and a gondolier's hat on the day that sparked the beginning of a 40-year friendship.

• Givenchy went on to design the actress' personal ensembles, as well as those made famous by her in timeless films such as Funny Face,Sabrina, and of course Breakfast at Tiffany's."The little black dress is the hardest thing to realise," he told the Independent in an interview in 2010, "because you must keep it simple." In the words of Hepburn, Givenchy to her was more than a couturier, and indeed she to him far more than a muse. Theirs was a relationship not only of professional advantages, as they propelled one another into the royalty of their respective worlds, but one of deep and long-lasting affection, that would continue for more than forty years.

• 1957 saw the launch of one of Givenchy's most influential designs, the "sack" silhouette. Revolutionary for its time, the sack dress abandoned form and waistline, and in its place offered mystery surrounding the female body beneath. Givenchy also encouraged women to show more of their legs during the day with raised hemlines, and in this movement he became a predecessor of the one of the most influential decades in fashion, the Sixties.

• 1957 was also the year in which Givenchy launched his first perfume, L'interdit. Promoted by Hepburn, its success soared, hitting headlines as the first time the world had seen an actress as the face of a perfume.

• 1973 marked an additional landmark in the House of Givenchy, with the launch of the first men's collection Gentleman Givenchy.

• Selling his business to Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessey in 1988, and retiring in 1995, Givenchy was succeeded by widely celebrated and innovative designers including Alexander McQueen, John Galliano, Julien Macdonald, and Riccardo Tisci  - who now stands at the helm of the Givenchy empire, as the creative director for the Givenchy haute couture and ready-to-wear collections.

• Now in his Eighties, Givenchy - who lives in a country estate Le Jonchet just outside of Paris - has all but removed himself from the fashion world, emerging only occasionally for brief interviews or rare public talks, like the one he gave at the Oxford Union in July 2010. He does occasionally comment on key fashion moments, and earlier this year described Kate Middleton's choice of  former Givenchy designer Alexander McQueen's label for her wedding dress as "a lovely thought, a nice tribute" following McQueen's untimely death in February 2010. (ROFF, C., 2011.)

So, what I've taken from this is is the following:

A very tall man, born into a very wealthy family, made a fashion house that has remained to this day to be one of the most influential and elitist brands in history.

I think that that is something really impressive. I've just sat and watched the video for the Givenchy Spring/Summer 2016 and as much as I wanted to hate it, I didn't. I actually loved it. It's black, white and cream. Lace and silks. Dammnit. I guess this might be easier to write about after all, however it doesn't seem as though it going to be easier to squish the theme of 'Effervescent' in. Hmm. Food for thought.