CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 2/24/2015

Hubert de Givenchy

Frank Horvat's 1958 photograph of Bettina Graziani, early press secretary, model and muse to Hubert de Givenchy, is reproduced from Fundación Colección Thyssen-Bornemisza's stunning new catalogue to the first exhibition ever devoted to this legendary designer. The show was curated by Givenchy himself, alongside Eloy Martínez de la Perla, who concludes his essay, "An artist sees himself in his work; he prolongs himself through his art and provides answers to anyone who comes to gaze at it. Halfway between the purity of form and ornamental ecstasy, Givenchy infused each of his creations with his delicacy, with his singular poetry, confronting the past, the depths of his soul, his highly personal pantheon of myths. And there were the colors of Watteau, the cotton muslins and velvets he had seen in Titian; the tout Paris, the laces of Goya, the veils that concealed beautiful gazes according to Verlaine and all the modernity of an age that eventually came to an end. 'Fashion has turned into that extravagance, that ugliness, all that circus,' he stated regretfully. The time had thus come to retire, 'to tend to the garden at Versailles,' to see life, art and fashion from the perspective of the wise man, he who has meant everything to it."