Riccardo Tisci has left the building. As we wait for the news about his successor at Givenchy—all we could elicit today was an assurance that the announcement would happen “very soon”—the studio team has designed an interim collection. As these things go, this was a clever one. For Fall 2017, the atelier chose 27 looks from Tisci’s 12-year oeuvre, each one, as a PR rep put it, “as representative of the house codes as possible.” He didn’t mean Tisci’s codes; he meant Hubert de Givenchy’s, and he included lace and ruffles in that number. But, of course, the pieces in the new Fall collection bear Tisci’s stamp. If the house has a global image now it is not thanks to its founder or his earlier successors; it is due to the untested young Italian, barely 30, who took over in 2005.
As famous and successful as he became, Tisci required a while to warm up and grow into his role, truth be told; the great majority of the pieces in this collection date from 2010 and later, which is five years after he took the job. That’s a point worth making, considering that these days creative directors are lucky if they last three years, let alone nearly twice that. Tisci may be the last of his kind, which isn’t a good thing for fashion. Consistency is the ugly stepsister of change in this business, but it’s just as essential. Maybe more. It takes time to establish a voice and make it connect across markets and media. Let’s remember that fact as we greet Givenchy’s new creative director in the coming weeks. Days? And let’s honor all that Tisci contributed to this house—most recently the best-in-show beaded flapper dress that Emma Stone wore when she picked up her Best Actress Oscar at the Academy Awards last month.
And now a word for the studio team. They came up with the timely idea of presenting this interim collection entirely in red, the color of the season. Whoever replaces RT should be happy to know that these guys and girls have their eyes open.
