STARS IN THE EARTH AND THE SKY • STYLISTS WHO HAVE STORY

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This week, the fashion suffered a great loss, because died on Saturday 10/03 the designer Hubert Givenchy, at 91 years. Hubert created the French label that bears his name, and even today, more than 60 years after its inauguration, is considered synonymous with luxury and elegance serving as reference for countless women around the world.
He started his fashion career very early. At the age of 17 he was a couturier at the Maison de Jacques Fath and after working for some time with other great French fashion labels such as Christian Dior and Pierre Balmain, he inaugurated his own label at the age of 24. It did not take long to become a priority choice for high-society women of the time, especially when it came time to choose a play for a special occasion.
In 1953 he met Audrey Hepburn, an actress of whom he became a close friend and then went on to dress her for her films, which made it possible to perpetuate some models through television. Some of the pieces used by Audrey are seen as fashion icons as the classic black dress she wore while playing Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961).
Hubert retired in 1995 and after that have passed through the creative direction of the Maison the designers John Galliano (1995), Alexander MacQueen (1996), Julien Macdonald (2001) and Ricardo Tisci (2005). Now for the first time in women’s hands, Clare Waight Keller is the brand leader.

But unfortunately, Hubert Givenchy was not the only fashion genius to leave us in the last year. Recently we had the sad news also on the part of the stylist Ocimar Versolato, who passed away in December. He graduated from Versace and in the 1990s came to take on the creative direction of Lanvin. In 1994 he inaugurated the brand in France with his name and became one of the few Brazilians to follow his fashion career in Paris, where he even became part of the select group of the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture.

In 2017, we suffered the loss of the French stylist Emmanuelle Khanh, who was a pioneer in the pret-a-porter. The designer created her brand in the mid-60s, where she presented pieces aimed at younger audiences (Emmanuelle Khanh dared to create a fashion for the young, when other designers were dedicated to creating elegant models for ladies, says Claude Brouet, who at the time worked as a journalist for Elle magazine).

Azzedine Alaïa, the French-Tunisian designer known for presenting his timeless works outside the official parade calendar, also left us in the last year. The sad news of the loss was commented officially with regret by the former French Minister of Culture Jack Lang, as the loss of the “magician of the scissors”.

The year has been beautiful in many ways, but sad in others. We have to think about the beautiful legacy that these and other masters of the seam have left us so that we can learn and develop in the best way.