A biography for Hubert de Givenchyhasn’t been written yet.
“נשים אמריקאיות ואיטלקיות מעוררות מעצבים לעשות דברים חדשים.”
“אתה חייב, אם זה אפשרי, להיוולד עם סוג של אלגנטיות. זה חלק ממך, מעצמך.”
“בד הוא הדבר הכי יוצא דופן; יש לזה חיים. אתה חייב לכבד את הבד.”
“A piece of material has a life. You must never upset it if you want the material to speak.”
“It gives you a good feeling. Each year, you rediscover in a garden the magic of life. A flower arrives, and it is a miracle. The leaves fall in the autumn, and it looks fantastic. There is a tenderness about a garden, and you can't help but be sensitive to that.”
“My grandmother had a cupboard where she kept her collections and textile samples of all sorts of things. When I had good grades, I could take out one piece of work to look at.”
“In the early '50s, it was still the time of Christian Dior's New Look. Every dress was big and important, and I thought I must do something completely different. Women needed something for daytime that was wearable.”
“I've stopped making frocks, but not making discoveries.”
“I had this creativity always with this will for perfection, and I always said to myself, 'Look for what's best.' 'That's your goal, your driving principle.'”
“Balenciaga was my religion. Since I'm a believer, for me, there's Balenciaga, and the good Lord.”
“You work around a body and adapt the clothes to your own customer, and this is the interesting part. This is why the haute couture exists: because in ready-to-wear, you have not too much fitting.”
“I am of tradition, but that doesn't mean I have an old outlook on life.”
“Like in great painting and architecture, in couture, to make clothes you must eliminate, eliminate, eliminate to obtain the true sense of a line. You see, the more you add, the more you load on, the more it's mad. You must try to have just the silhouette, which is an intelligence in clothes.”
“Encouragement helps you to go one step more, become better.”
“When you see the best of the best - when you see a Matisse or a Picasso - what interests you is the creativity and harmony.”
“It is important to work. It is important for my mind.”
“It was always my dream to be a dress designer, and my mother accepted that decision.”
“I love to dance, and I love to see people dance. It is good exercise. It gives you a kind of energy.”
“I had the fortune to evolve at a time when fashion was very important, and women dressed themselves very well. A woman who dressed very well also had a husband who would have beautiful collections of art and decorative objects.”
“I think when you sell your company and are no longer the master of driving it, it's quite difficult.”