January 22, 2020 |
A garden odyssey inspired Clare Waight Keller’s masterful Givenchy couture show. Visits to Vita Sackville West’s glorious garden at Sissinghurst (considered one of the finest in England), the orchards at Monk House and Hubert de Givenchy’s Clos Fiorentina got the designer thinking about gardens as ever-growing love letters and their flower beds as metaphors for powerful acts of nurturing and cultivating.
Waight Keller described Sissinghurst as “one of most romantic places in England I have visited so many times and the gardens [Sackville West] built influenced all the colours.” Inky Iris blue, vivid yellow and pure white dominated the palette. Waight Keller’s couture is not one of passive prettiness but powerful shapes, imposing structures and intricately constructed marvels. Models wore gowns made of petal-like cascades and huge sheer hats that framed the entire body created in partnership with milliner Noel Stewart. The influence of Hubert de Givenchy’s classic sculptural couture silhouettes were everywhere as was the craft he championed. Waight Keller spent intense hours in the Givenchy archive and it showed. The white lace petal gowns that closed the show were Waight Keller’s own love letter to Hubert and the art of couture.
Photographs by Jason Lloyd-Evans.
