<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"  The collection of clothes currently hanging in Givenchy&amp;#039;s grand couture salon on posh Avenue George V in Paris would probably make Audrey Hepburn, longtime muse of retired couturier Hubert de Givenchy and revered house icon, roll over in her slender grave. In between the towering sheets of elegantly laced art nouveau windows hang droopy silk dhoti pants, severe black jackets covered in an armor of futuristic gold cutouts, and sculpted ruffled miniskirts whose job it is to publicize a glossy set of legs.  None of this would have gotten Hepburn and her jewel-clipped bouffant through coffee and a doughnut outside Tiffany&amp;#039;s back in the 1960s. But as fashion historian Valerie Steele points out, &amp;quot;There are no Audreys anymore.&amp;quot;  Times have certainly changed at Givenchy, where, against stacked odds, Italian designer Riccardo Tisci has pulled off the feat of resuscitating a barely breathing 56-year-old brand, leaving it not just in a stable postoperative state but vigorously kicking. Tisci&amp;#039;s personal look--a scruffy beard, a tangle of gold charms around his neck, bulky sneakers, and a navy gas-attendant shirt with the word Tenderloin scribbled across the pocket--explains a lot about the transformation at Givenchy. This uniform is rarely altered, regardless of whether he&amp;#039;s meeting Queen Rania of Jordan on a couture appointment, club hopping with Hedi Slimane, or dancing with Courtney Love at his show afterparty. Over a civilized lunch and a string of cigarettes in Paris, he confesses, &amp;quot;I feel like a penguin in a suit.&amp;quot;  At 34, Tisci is the youngest haute couturier in all of Paris and the only one of his generation to also hold women&amp;#039;s and men&amp;#039;s ready-to-wear posts. Yet unlike the dapper Monsieur Givenchy or the jet-setting recently retired Valentino, Tisci harbors no ambitions of gaining entr\u00E9e to the rarefied world of couture clients and haute socializing. &amp;quot;They&amp;#039;re always inviting me to go to their homes or on their yachts,&amp;quot; he professes, alarmed at the idea. &amp;quot;But it&amp;#039;s just not me.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;In New York, we never go to the hot spot of the moment,&amp;quot; says model Mariacarla Boscono, who is one of the designer&amp;#039;s closest friends as well as an unofficial muse for Givenchy. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s always some unknown, totally random hip-hop place. That&amp;#039;s what makes him so cool.&amp;quot; Tisci&amp;#039;s coolness was never a slam-dunk sort of destiny; it almost didn&amp;#039;t happen at all. As the last child and only son of an impoverished family of nine children outside Como, Italy, he started working at age 11, slapping plaster on walls every day after school with his uncle. The family, hit by the early death of his father, needed the money, and there were no free rides, not even for the only boy. On weekends, he locked himself in his room to draw while blasting Iron Maiden. &amp;quot;My mom had a hard time when I was young,&amp;quot; he admits. &amp;quot;I was always closed up in the house. I was so shy.&amp;quot;  When he was named women&amp;#039;s creative director of Givenchy in 2005 at age 30, a collective head scratch rippled over the fashion industry. With a degree from Central Saint Martins, a few consultancies, and just two of his own Goth-inspired ready-to-wear collections in Milan under his belt, Tisci wasn&amp;#039;t just green; he was practically a fashion zygote. &amp;quot;I kept asking, Why me?&amp;#039;&amp;#039; he remembers. &amp;quot;I was a no-name. Not everybody was happy that I was here, and not everyone believed in me.&amp;quot;  Inside Givenchy, the staff had sustained a rocky designer roll call, with John Galliano, Alexander McQueen, and Julien Macdonald all swinging in and swiftly out. &amp;quot;They were tired and a little bit jaded,&amp;quot; he remembers. &amp;quot;There had already been so many changes.&amp;quot;  Then in walked a young couture virgin without a clue as to atelier protocol. &amp;quot;For the first few months, I was completely lost. I was freaking out,&amp;quot; he says excitedly. &amp;quot;They were all calling me &amp;#039;monsieur,&amp;#039; and I was like, Stop calling me that!&amp;quot;  Further complicating things for Tisci was Monsieur Givenchy&amp;#039;s design legacy. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s tricky because Hubert&amp;#039;s style was French elegance,&amp;quot; observes Steele. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s relatively vague and such a 1950s concept.&amp;quot;  &amp;quot;Even I was not clear on what Givenchy was,&amp;quot; the designer allows. For his first collection, Tisci did darkly romantic deconstructed gowns in nude and black without a big bow in sight. The results were solid enough to warm up Givenchy&amp;#039;s cooled-off couture clientele and earn him the respect of the atelier&amp;#039;s petites mains, many of whom started calling him by his ?rst name. &amp;quot;Inside the company, everyone was offering me flowers,&amp;quot; he recalls of that early period. &amp;quot;But outside, there were people with guns pointed at me.&amp;quot;  The snipers were members of the fashion press who chose to lambaste every move Tisci made, from the unscripted, atmospheric live tableaux he favored (&amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s pretentious!&amp;quot; they sniffed incessantly) to the use of six black models, including Naomi Campbell and Liya Kebede, to open a show. (&amp;quot;Trying too hard!&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s forced!&amp;quot; they complained.) &amp;quot;They didn&amp;#039;t get it,&amp;quot; he now acknowledges of his prescient presentations. &amp;quot;You know, at the beginning there was just a lot of misunderstanding with the outside world. [The presentations were] the opposite of pretentious! I was showing respect for women. I didn&amp;#039;t want to see them walking around like robots.&amp;quot;  Tisci didn&amp;#039;t waste time sulking, however. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been through so much shit in my life, you think I go home and cry for a review? No way. I don&amp;#039;t cry for fashion.&amp;quot; Instead, he yielded to the establishment and shelved creative presentations. &amp;quot;I have to make other people believe in the clothes,&amp;quot; he explains. &amp;quot;So I said, &amp;#039;This is what you want? Fine.&amp;#039; But don&amp;#039;t worry; one day they&amp;#039;ll be back.&amp;quot; The criticism slowly turned to praise, culminating in the stellar response to his Fall &amp;#039;08 ready-to-wear collection, an edgy blend of romantic, frilled femininity and aggressive urban modernity. Tisci&amp;#039;s is an impressive feat, not just because he has Monsieur Givenchy&amp;#039;s blessing (&amp;quot;He told me, &amp;#039;Be yourself,&amp;#039; and he sends me birthday cards&amp;quot;) or because his makeover is the only one to successfully stick to Givenchy&amp;#039;s sensitive skin since its founder&amp;#039;s retirement in 1995. It&amp;#039;s also one of the few to work in an industry that is becoming increasingly intolerant of anything short of instant miracles.  &amp;quot;Fall is such a great collection, I can&amp;#039;t take it!&amp;quot; gushes Chicago store owner Ikram Goldman. &amp;quot;The proportions, fabrics, and quality are perfect. And the blouses are amazing; they are so couturelike.&amp;quot; Tisci himself doesn&amp;#039;t think it was his strongest collection (he prefers last fall&amp;#039;s studded marine show) but chalks up the improved response to a communal eye adjustment. &amp;quot;Sometimes you need to see a movie three times before you understand it,&amp;quot; he says with a shrug. &amp;quot;I think it&amp;#039;s the exact same style it always was, but now everyone is used to it.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s what happened to me too,&amp;quot; says Boscono. &amp;quot;People didn&amp;#039;t understand my beauty. Now they do. He needed to create his own world, and now people have fallen in love with it.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/fashion/trends/a333/whats-hot-now-givenchy-1008/>