Word: balenciaga
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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William Calvert, 29, has made an even quicker trip to important retail venues. Just two years ago, Calvert, who refined his tailoring skills at the fabled Parisian houses of Balmain and Balenciaga, decided to make six sample dresses in New York. Barney's and Bergdorf Goodman placed orders, and suddenly he was in business...
...There will be some sort of culture clash but, McQueen promises, "no bumsters." He believes the refinement of his tailoring makes him a worthy heir to Hubert de Givenchy: "The line of the body and the tailoring make it closer to what he was about, with his training with Balenciaga." As for the cost of couture, McQueen calls it just a fact of life. "If it requires 83 hours for a person to sit there beading a dress," he says, "that's it. Take it or leave...
...start well. When the young designer, scrambling to finish a collection in 1954, was told that an actress named Hepburn was calling to see him, he assumed it was Katharine. The ingenue from Hollywood had wanted her costumes for Sabrina to be made by Paris' reigning couturier, Cristobal Balenciaga, but the great man turned her away. The rejected muse then turned to another, younger designer, and it was rare affection at first sight. Eventually she called him her greatest friend, almost like a psychiatrist. He referred to her as a sister. Audrey Hepburn and Hubert de Givenchy...
...young Halston made her the famous pillbox hat. For the rest she looked toward Paris -- Jackie was a frank Francophile. The American designer Oleg Cassini made her copies of current couture, and Jackie encouraged people to believe she bought American. But she also shopped quietly at Givenchy and Balenciaga. Because her elegant taste was always restrained, it was very hard to tell the difference...
...everybody calls him, fits perfectly into the Balmain aesthetic. He is not an innovator -- his few enemies call him a copyist -- but he executes gorgeous costumes with a peerless eye for fabric, detail and nuance. He understands the exotic world of couture from his youthful years working for Balenciaga and Lanvin. His private life has provided him with a window into the life-styles of luxury. His first wife, who died several years ago, was Francoise de Langlade, editor in chief of the French Vogue. He is now married to Annette Reed, a daughter of the late metals industrialist Charles...