“Le grand goût français-great French taste-is almost in the blood,” she said. Something’s value was always secondary to provenance, appreciating who made it, how and why it was made, and the story it tells,” she said, adding that the couturier helped her forge relationships with artisans for her own homeware collection, which incorporates motifs by Hubert himself. “He had a golden heart, and he saw the heart in things. We think of him as le grand Hubert, this renegade of his time, but he was so graceful and humble,” she went on, describing the little mementos of friendship that live on at Le Jonchet, for example a poem written by Hepburn on a boarding pass envelope, tucked away in a drawer. “They had the kind of lifestyle that no longer exists today-and I can promise you that none of them was thinking about sneakers,” he quipped.īack at Christie’s, Zoe de Givenchy, the couturier’s niece by marriage, observed, “For Hubert, too much was never elegant. He had an architect’s sense of proportion,” he said, adding that the gallery has worked with all of couture’s greats. “Givenchy was the most important furniture collector in Paris, with the most beautiful home, and he was all about harmony and elegance à la française,” commented Nicolas Kugel. Though some items here were owned by Givenchy-a couple of vases, a pair of Venetian mirrors, a Boulle armoire that once served as a backdrop for a portrait of Audrey Hepburn-the brothers said that the aim was celebration, and not everything is available for purchase. There, brothers Alexis and Nicolas Kugel, who worked with Monsieur de Givenchy for more than 30 years and penned the preface for the Christie’s sale catalogue, have reconfigured a salon in the style of the couturier’s green living room, anchored by hallmarks of his taste. In addition to the Christie’s auction, Hubert de Givenchy’s style has inspired a tribute across town, at the Galerie Kugel, a bijou of an antiques gallery on the Left Bank.
Even if he accumulated lots of objects, and even if the spaces were large, his compositions gave a certain warmth, comfort, and intimacy to the whole.” He had the same attention to precision and profiles in fashion as in interiors, and he used color-green, white, black, and gold, and maybe a splash of something else to structure space. “Givenchy loved architecture, so his lines aren’t complicated or baroque, they’re simple and they’re spectacular. “I think Monsieur de Givenchy conceived décors the way he conceived dresses,” she said. Often, he would modernize those pieces, replacing faded tapestry or old brocade with new fabrics-a tiger print, perhaps, or a composition in leather-and therein lies the connection between the dual life of couturier and a collector, noted Cécile Verdier, president of Christie’s France. Spanning royal and aristocratic provenances from Kings Louis XV and XVI through the 20th century, they include the first 18th-century chair Givenchy purchased, early in his career. Officially, the event is estimated to bring in a total of about $52 million, although a quick glance online suggests that that number may be conservative: at press time, bidding for lots such as an ensemble of plates in Moustiers faience, or an 18th-century Venetian gondolier chair in gilt-tooled leather, already had reached more than triple their high estimates.Īside from pieces Givenchy picked up from other designers-a gilded Regency console once owned by Gabrielle Chanel, a pair of Louis XVI chiseled bronze andirons sold by Karl Lagerfeld at Christie’s in 2000-more than 440 chairs, sofas, and other seats are on the block. But it illustrates why the Givenchy considered fashion as just one of two careers, the other being “art lover.” Christie’s will disperse some 1,229 lots spanning 18th-century furniture, art by Picasso, Giacometti, and Miro, and contemporary works through Friday, with an online auction running until June 23. The highly anticipated sale is taking place 70 years after the couturier’s debut, in 1952. Starting tomorrow, masterpieces from the estate of Hubert de Givenchy will go under the hammer at Christie’s Paris, culminating a world tour that brought a glimpse of the exquisite taste on display in the designer’s two primary homes-in Paris and his manor, the Château du Jonchet-to Palm Beach, New York, Los Angeles, and Hong Kong. This week marks a final farewell to the golden years of French couture-and the lifestyle that accompanied it.
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