March 7, 2026 |
Sarah Burton is entering her maestro era and it’s thrilling to see. A real class act, she’s making some of the best clothes in ready-to-wear, infusing each Givenchy piece with elegance and soul, whilst never losing focus on the women who will wear them.
Reflecting on her three seasons at the house she said, “I really wanted to establish this silhouette. You know, build, build, build, build. Rebuild the house. Start from the foundation, start from the structure.”
Her tailoring is indeed superlative and this season she evolved it beyond hourglass silhouettes into stunning, androgynous, double breasted trouser suits. Explaining her process she said she created the patterns in the women’s atelier “then I construct it with a men’s wear hands, so you get this feminine shape of the jacket so it skims the body.” Skims, but still looks sharp as a pin. Burton’s precision is awe inspiring.
With that groundwork laid, it was time to expand the vocabulary to reflect the diversity of the women she dresses. “This one was more personal,” said Burton. Alongside precision-cut velvet gowns, spliced to the hip, she introduced a new flamboyance, with animal print, ‘20s deco party dresses inspired by an Erté drawing. Some pieces were worn with little sleevelets or mittens in matching fabrics. That detail came from a happy accident. “I was slicing sleeves off, and it just fell down,” she said. She liked the look and kept it.
Burton explains she is designing for women who live “multifaceted, complicated lives”, and imagined them dressing them for “different times, for different moments”. The silk hats designed by Stephen Jones, were she said based on the idea of T-shirts pulled up over the head in haste. “We were talking about women getting dressed in the morning and putting a T-shirt on. Is the most democratic object.” Democratic they may be but these clothes are in a class of their own.
Photography courtesy of Givenchy.
