Following fall 2024 exhibits for males (in January) and girls (in March) that have been each offered inside Givenchy’s house on Avenue George V, this 2025 pre-co lookbook noticed the design studios be a part of forces to shoot their respective collections on the sidewalk exterior it. Over a Zoom Susanna Venegas (who design-directs the womenswear) and Josh Bullen (ditto menswear-wise) defined their rationale.
Stated Venegas: “We work individually, but additionally have a reasonably fixed dialog. And whereas we each have our personal inspirations, there may be additionally that language that we share. So when it got here to capturing this lookbook it was about exploring a story between the 2 collections.” Added Bullen: “We each work to very completely different timings, so it’s onerous to do one thing that’s totally linked… so right here we needed to introduce some seems to be as {couples} as a result of it’s not one thing that we’ve been in a position to do earlier than. And when it got here to styling and taking a look at each collections, there have been some explicit mixtures that appeared actually good collectively.”
Venegas mentioned her cipher for this assortment was Stella Tennant (with a contact of Paula Yates). Bullen in the meantime leaned in the direction of John Lydon by way of Julan Schnabel. These differing instructions partially mirrored their completely different design backgrounds, respectively in couture (at Dior, earlier than a stint at Margiela), and in technically superior utilitarian menswear (Stone Island). When the collections have been shot collectively, the intersections thrown up by this adjacency have been enjoyable and convincing. A white womenswear double satin, buttoned funnel-neck shirt worn above a black marabou pompom lined skater skirt epitomized Venegas’s apparently (however not) thrown collectively racy insouciance. Alongside it Bullen’s cashmere catprint ringer sweater and slouchily worn tuxedo pants and open-heel loafers was extra dressed-up grunge.
Checked out in isolation, the Venegas-overseen womenswear leant into Givenchy’s late ’60s and ’70s archive whereas working to reconfigure its angle with a purpose to serve modern context. This was achieved via changes in proportion and materiality that refocused the home’s genteel supply code to sign one thing bolder and extra self-determined. In menswear, in the meantime, Bullen channeled Hubert’s peerless midcentury patrician grandeur in the direction of a twenty first century masculine equal by making use of twin tailoring silhouettes each designed to be worn irreverently, generally expressed in a blue patterned double-faced nylon impressed by Hubert’s personal loungewear. There was additionally a base of upgraded however vintage-inspired army gown and among the extra whimsical particulars, cat-pattern included, carried over from fall.
Fairly what the longer term will deliver at Givenchy nonetheless stays murky: within the meantime Venegas and Bullen are leaning into that limbo to provide enjoyable and enticing collections whose frequent denominators are readability and panache.
