Clare Waight Keller’s mood board was papered with scans of Nouvelle Vague movie posters, archival imagery of Hubert de Givenchy’s midcentury collections, and artwork by Helena Almeida and Ketty La Rocca, as well as movie stills of the achingly beautiful Anouk Aimée. Together the research yielded a Givenchy collection with an assertive graphic verve. Black, white, and red were its dominant colors, with motifs that included dots, checks, preppy rugby stripes, and La Rocca’s giant apostrophes.
After last season’s side trip into upcycled jeans and hippie florals to wear with them, this was a more formal collection, with an emphasis on the demonstrative tailoring Waight Keller has made her speciality at Givenchy. Its demonstrativeness this season was derived from strong shoulders, from which fell soft, full, and feminine sleeves, as seen on items including a double-breasted jacket, an evening coat, and a retro-elegant dove-gray caped dress. Elbow-length gloves added a sense of occasion to many of the ensembles.
The softly draped, boldly printed dresses that appeared midshow resonated more directly with how women are dressing now, i.e., with an eye for attention-grabbing details but also an appreciation of—make that an insistence on—ease. In a couple of instances, they were worn over pants, which is a styling trick you’re more likely to see IRL than the opera-length gloves that accompanied the suiting. Kiki Willems’s caped knit dress operated on a similar principle: Comfort plus circumstance is a potent combination.
For evening, Waight Keller zeroed in on fringe and feathers. They’ve turned out to be two of the most popular refrains of the season, seen just about everywhere, but they’ve been part of her Givenchy oeuvre since her first haute couture collection two years ago. Here they came in optic black and white, and they decorated both a relaxed Le Smoking and floor-length dresses with cinematic Old Hollywood flair. The dramatic chapeaus, which Waight Keller likened to cloaks for their face-framing properties, were a lift from HdG’s oeuvre and a nod to the house founder, who would’ve turned 93 two weeks ago.
