Coinciding with the 70th anniversary of Hubert de Givenchy's first haute couture collection, Christie's presents the sale of the inimitable fashion designer's decorative arts collection. The auction features more than 1,200 lots of furniture and artwork from two of his exquisite homes: Hôtel d'Orrouer in Paris and Château du Jonchet in the Loire Valley. Many of the French and European furnishings, Old Masters' paintings, and contemporary sculptures coming to auction have not been seen in the market for decades.
This extraordinary collection will be at auction in Paris June 14–17 with live sales, with a dedicated online sale running June 8–23. Additionally, beginning June 8, Christie's in Paris will present a presale exhibition of curated lots for public viewing. The highlighted lots from the collection embarked on a worldwide tour March 5, beginning in Palm Beach and including stops in New York and Hong Kong before arriving back in Paris.
Hubert de Givenchy was born in 1927 into an aristocratic family residing in Beauvais who nurtured his love for creativity, colors, and fashion. His great-grandfather was a stage set designer for the Paris Opera, while his grandfather headed up the Beauvais tapestry factory and was a great collector. From an early age, Hubert was surrounded by high standards of beauty and classicism.
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After moving to Paris and working under several legendary designers like Elsa Schiaparelli and Robert Piguet, Hubert opened his eponymous fashion house on the rue Alfred de Vigny in 1952. He was known for his pure lines and his forward-thinking silhouettes and concepts, such as his Bettina blouse inspired by model Bettina Graziani and his introduction of separates in women's fashions, which allowed women to mix and match blouses and skirts. The gentlemanly couturier dressed many of the world's most iconic and stylish women like First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, film star Audrey Hepburn (creating many of her movie wardrobes, including Sabrina, Funny Face, Charade, and Breakfast at Tiffany's), the Duchess of Windsor, Bunny Mellon, and Marella Agnelli, to name a few. One could argue Hubert established the standard to which French elegance is now held.
Hubert approached the design of his homes and gardens just as he would his fashion collections. The interiors of his Paris and Loire Valley homes had an order and structure to the way he created them with each object having a specific home.
He was constantly inspired by his favorite colors of green, gold, white, and black. His use of the color green connected the interiors and exquisite gardens of Le Jonchet, and the green silk velvet room in Hôtel d'Orrouer is a tableau vivant of French restraint and elegance.
Hubert is also celebrated for his masterful mixing of important furniture and more modern touches. He once said, "Fashion changes, but the 18th-century style will endure, as it is of exceptional quality. [Such style will endure] on the condition that it is not restrained within a fully period atmosphere. That it is given a breath of fresh air by Delaunay, Arp, and Giacometti, and above all, that it is not weighed down by pom-poms and trimmings.”
Château du Jonchet served as a retreat for Hubert and his partner, fellow couturier Philippe Venet, and an escape for friends and family (and their many pets, like Labrador retrievers and Shetland ponies) during holidays. The couple, known for perfection in their work and decorating and their dogged pursuit of beauty in every aspect of their lives, painstakingly restored the manor and its gardens, marking every room and area of the estate with antiques they collected throughout their travels.
Mellon, a close friend of the couple's and a longtime client of Hubert (he even designed her gardening clothes), had her own bedroom in a turret at the château (and he, his own, in Mellon's Antigua home). Hubert found inspiration in gardens and would visit the gardens of Virginia with Mellon; he modeled one of his gardens at Château du Jonchet after a garden at George Washington's Mount Vernon.
"Despite his classical taste, he was innately modern. He could mix periods and styles with a heavy dose of restraint and balance," says Zoë de Givenchy, founder of Z.d.G by Zoë de Givenchy, an online destination for artisan-made tableware and decorations, and whose husband, Olivier de Givenchy, was Hubert's nephew.
"Over the course of his life, he assembled an exceptional collection of furniture and classical and modern art, which he arranged in his homes according to the same exacting standards and exquisitely refined sensibility and passionate creativity that he applied to his work as a couturier."
Hubert also had a long-standing relationship with Christie's. In 1993, the fashion designer worked with Christie's to arrange a sale of some of his early 18th-century furniture and included sculpture, paintings, and silverware, in essence creating the "collection sale." Hubert became chairman of the supervisory board of Christie's France in 1997 and assisted Christie's with the orchestration of displays and curation of certain exhibitions. He was also involved in the preservation of many of France's historic monuments and an advocate for the Château de Versailles and the Louvre Museum.
"This sale is an opportunity for our family to celebrate Hubert de Givenchy as one of the greatest ambassadors of French taste and to share with the world his art of living, collecting, and the elegance he sought to capture in all things," says Givenchy. "He was the quintessence of elegance and the Grand Goût français—perhaps the last of his kind.
"Hubert’s spirit will always live on at Le Jonchet," continues Givenchy. "I believe his aesthetic is masterful because it is timeless. There is no need for reinvention."
