Givenchy

Givenchy is a French couture house, founded in Paris in 1952 by Hubert de Givenchy and owned by LVMH since 1988. Most people know it for one thing, the wardrobe it built for Audrey Hepburn across three decades, and that partnership still shapes how the house is read today. The name is pronounced zhee-VON-shee, with a soft French G.

Across seventy years Givenchy has alternated between two ideas of itself. There is the couture house of clean lines and separates that the founder built, and there is the darker, harder-edged streetwear brand that Riccardo Tisci made commercially enormous in the 2010s. Both are legitimate, and the house is at its best when a designer picks one and commits.

Behind the brand

History of Givenchy

Hubert de Givenchy opened his house on Rue Alfred de Vigny in 1952 at twenty-four, after training under Jacques Fath, Robert Piguet, Lucien Lelong and Elsa Schiaparelli. His debut collection, which included the Bettina Blouse, was made in inexpensive cotton shirting because he could not afford couture fabric, and it was celebrated for exactly that plainness. His separates carried an argument with them, that a woman should be able to build outfits rather than buy whole looks, which was not the prevailing view in 1952.

He met Audrey Hepburn in 1953 and dressed her on screen and off for the next three decades, including the black dress that opens Breakfast at Tiffany’s in 1961. He also formed a close friendship with Cristóbal Balenciaga, whose approach to structure shaped his own.

LVMH acquired the house in 1988 and Givenchy retired in 1995. John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, Julien Macdonald, Riccardo Tisci, Clare Waight Keller and Matthew Williams have all held the studio since, and Sarah Burton took it in 2024. Waight Keller’s 2018 wedding dress for the Duchess of Sussex was the house’s largest single moment of public attention in decades.

The Givenchy collection

The Antigona is the house’s handbag anchor, a structured triangular tote that has stayed in the range through several changes of creative direction. The Pandora, the Cut-Out and the 4G line extend the bag offer, and our guide to women’s designer work bags covers how the Antigona ranks against its rivals.

The footwear now pulls as much attention as the bags. The Shark Lock boot, introduced under Matthew Williams and named for the toothed metal zip pull that runs up the side, became one of the most recognizable boots in luxury and one of the most searched Givenchy products of any kind. The house’s sneakers, slides and the men’s ready-to-wear round out a range that leans harder into streetwear than the founder’s era would suggest.

Couture remains part of the business, shown in Paris, and it is still the technical foundation the rest of the house is built on.

Craftsmanship and materials

Givenchy’s leather goods are made in Italy, and the Antigona’s appeal rests on how rigidly it holds its shape. That takes a heavy, well-tempered calfskin and internal structuring that most soft totes do not attempt. The bag is not light. The trade is deliberate, and it is what separates the Antigona from the slouchier bags it competes with.

The couture atelier in Paris supplies the rest. Hubert de Givenchy’s separates were built on precise armhole and shoulder work, and that lineage still shows in the house’s tailoring more clearly than in its logo pieces.

Givenchy jewelry

Givenchy jewelry is one of the most searched parts of the name, and it needs an honest explanation, because most of it is not what a first-time buyer expects. The pieces sold and traded in volume, especially the vintage flex bracelets, are costume jewelry: gold-tone metal and glass or rhinestone stones rather than gold and precious gems. A great deal of it is vintage, from the licensed production the house ran through the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

That is why Givenchy jewelry looks like a designer name but costs a fraction of fine jewelry. It is genuine Givenchy and it is well made, with a quality of execution that stands close to vintage Chanel or Dior costume pieces, but it has not yet been priced up to match them. For a certain collector that gap is the appeal. Just know what you are buying: a well-made costume piece, not a precious one.

Givenchy fragrance and beauty

Givenchy’s fragrance history runs straight back to the Hepburn story. The house created L’Interdit in 1957 as a scent for Audrey Hepburn herself, one of the first fragrances built around a single famous woman, and a modern L’Interdit still anchors the women’s line. On the men’s side, Gentleman, first launched in 1974 and relaunched in recent years, is the pillar, joined by Irresistible among the women’s scents. The fragrances and cosmetics run through LVMH’s beauty division rather than the fashion house.

The Prisme Libre loose setting powder, with its four toning shades in one compact, has been a makeup-artist staple since the 1980s. Between the powder and the fragrances, cosmetics are the way most people actually own something Givenchy.

Where to buy Givenchy

Givenchy sells through its own boutiques, its official site, department stores and luxury etailers. Distribution is broad, so seasonal discounting on ready-to-wear and footwear is common through wholesale, and it is worth waiting for on a piece you are not in a hurry to own. Vintage costume jewelry is best bought through established resale platforms, where the pieces are catalogued and authenticated.

Givenchy price

Givenchy prices in the middle of the LVMH fashion houses, below Dior and Celine. Small leather goods start in the mid hundreds and the Antigona lands in the low thousands, with the size making most of the difference. The Shark Lock boots are the top of the footwear range, the fragrances and the Prisme Libre powder are the accessible entry points, and vintage costume jewelry can be had for far less than any of it. The medium Antigona in smooth black calf is the version that has been in the range longest, and it is the one we would buy.