Paris Fashion Week: Givenchy Spring/Summer 2021

Lindsay Judge   |   05-10-2020

Givenchy presented its Spring/Summer 2021 collection as part of Paris Fashion Week.

 

The first collection designed by new Creative Director Matthew M. Williams this offering represents the evolution of the brand.

 

Presented via a series of images created in collaboration with photographer Heji Shin, the men’s and women’s creations are centred around ‘Hardware’. Key jewellery and accessories set the tone for this collection as a symbolic representation of utility and luxury.

 

 

Matthew M Williams, Creative Director, Givenchy said: “You find the pieces of the puzzle for a collection, building it from symbols and signs, but never forgetting the reality of the person who will wear it and bring it to life. The women and men should be powerful and effortless, equal and joyful, a reflection of who they really are – only more so. It’s about finding the humanity in luxury.”

 

 

This collection started with those hardware pieces. A key symbol for the designer was the Lover’s Lock – the symbol that is placed on a bridge in Paris representing those in love who have visited. The Lover’s Lock is a unisex object of utility, decoration, commitment and emotion; a sincere yet playful symbol of Paris. It is an object punctuated throughout this initial collection as both decoration and fastenings.

 

 

Designed in the middle of the pandemic, this collection explores what is to come in the new beginning for the brand. It is a new approach but it brings in elements of the past and key symbols of the House’s DNA.

 

 

Above all, there is a sense of celebration, of the people who have led Williams here and those he wants to wear the clothes.

 

 

From Hubert de Givenchy’s swathes of looped drapery, lighter than air transparencies, linear necklines and ‘Jour’ open backs, to the McQueen horn, reborn; both the classical and radical contrasts of Givenchy are embraced and shown to have always been part of the house’s history in the collection. Ultimately, it is a feeling of elegance, playfulness and pragmatism that is key to Matthew M Williams’ vision for the house.

 

 

From the Tryp-toe shoe and stockings, the Horn heel and hat together with a further examination of the Antigona bag, each is a play on and development of existing objects in the archive.

 

From the use of a cotton Ottoman for both genders in outerwear, technical taffeta in tailoring and structured Punto di Milano jersey to evoke more pure forms in dressmaking, tradition is respected yet refined and re-contextualized.

 

The study of casual archetypes continues throughout the collection, including new technical coatings of denim in both paint and resin, work that is as labour intensive as the collection’s more traditional embroideries.

 

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