Givenchy

Givenchy was founded in Paris in 1952 by Hubert de Givenchy. He was a young couturier who had trained under Jacques Fath, Robert Piguet, Lucien Lelong, and Elsa Schiaparelli.

His opening collection introduced the “Bettina Blouse,” a cotton shirt named after the model Bettina Graziani. The collection proposed a new idea for Parisian couture: separates that could be mixed and matched, sold to women who wanted something lighter than the structured postwar silhouette.

The early press praised him for a clean, refined, aristocratic elegance. His friendship with Cristóbal Balenciaga, who became a mentor, cemented his reputation as a serious technician with real technical depth.

Menswear arrived later. Givenchy Gentleman launched in 1969 as one of the first French couture houses to formalize a men’s ready-to-wear line.

The clothes followed the house grammar. Clean shoulders, narrow lapels, fluid trousers, and shirting cut from poplin and voile sat closer to the restraint of Dior Monsieur than the louche tailoring coming out of Milan at houses like Brioni.

Hubert de Givenchy was named Commandeur of the Légion d’honneur. The house dressed John F. Kennedy and the Duke of Windsor alongside its better-known womenswear clients, placing it firmly inside the postwar Parisian establishment.

LVMH acquired Givenchy in 1988. After Hubert’s retirement in 1995, the house passed through John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Julien Macdonald, Riccardo Tisci, Clare Waight Keller, and Matthew M. Williams. Each redrew the menswear codes in different directions, with Tisci’s Rottweiler sweatshirts and Williams’s hardware-driven tailoring being the most commercially visible.

Sarah Burton took over as creative director in 2024. The men’s collections now sit alongside the women’s under a single design vision.

Givenchy today dresses a customer who wants Parisian tailoring with a streetwear-aware edge. The house sits inside the LVMH portfolio alongside Dior Men, with Kering-owned Balenciaga as its main rival across the conglomerate divide.