How Audrey Hepburn and Givenchy created a fashion staple in Breakfast At Tiffany’s

Audrey Hepburn's iconic look from Breakfast at Tiffany's.

Transcript

00:00Did you know that this timeless image of Audrey Hepburn in that Givenchy LBD

00:05would never have happened if it wasn't for Marilyn Monroe's advisor?

00:08Truman Capote originally wanted Marilyn Monroe to play his character,

00:12Holly Golightly, in Breakfast at Tiffany's.

00:14But Marilyn's advisor and acting coach said she shouldn't play an escort

00:18because it was too risque.

00:20It's interesting that we associate Hepburn's image

00:23as that same character with pure elegance.

00:25When the fact that she's eating a breakfast pastry in bright sunlight,

00:29wearing a gown,

00:30is supposed to imply that she's been up all night.

00:32It's not what most of us look like after a night out.

00:36But a girl can dream.

00:38Hepburn's eventual casting was also the reason

00:40Givenchy designed the wardrobe for Breakfast at Tiffany's.

00:43The pair were inseparable,

00:45and it was written in her movie contract that he should do the costumes.

00:48Fair enough, really.

00:49Every look in that movie was on point,

00:51right down to her eye mask and earring earplugs.

00:54Yep, the trope of women who aren't rich,

00:56wearing unrealistically beautiful luxury outfits

00:59was happening long before sex in the city.

01:01Givenchy considered Hepburn his sister.

01:03Their close relationship spanned 40 years.

01:05He kept a mannequin with her measurements in his studio to inspire him.

01:09While Hepburn once told McCall's magazine,

01:11I depend on Givenchy in the same way

01:13that American women depend on their psychiatrists.

01:16Before meeting him,

01:17Hepburn recalls only wearing homemade clothes.

01:20When looking for her first haute couture designer in Paris,

01:23she had originally been turned away by Balenciaga

01:25and was only dressed by Givenchy

01:27because he immediately loved how she wore his designs.

01:30So when she played Holly Golightly,

01:31a character with a Cinderella-esque rags-to-riches fantasy,

01:35it was fitting that Givenchy,

01:36her unofficial fairy godmother, should dress her.