In addition to its enduring cinematic and stylistic legacy, so do the wedding dresses of Audrey Hepburn they continue to influence the world. Its cultural impact can also be traced back to its wedding style and above all to the models worn over the course of 40 years of friendship and collaboration with Hubert de Givenchy. At the forefront and creator of timeless fashion trends, Hepburn has even inspired the world of contemporary wedding fashion to embrace the black and white wedding dress, after debuting a strapless gown in embroidered organza by Givenchy during the spectacular party scene in Sabrina, of 1954.
“She is what people mean when they say they want to look ‘classic and timeless’, or ‘elegant but no frills’,” he says. Lily Kaizer owner of luxury vintage wedding dress salon Happy Isles.
The (almost) lucky wedding dress
During the filming of Roman holidays of 1953, Hepburn was engaged to the English industrialist James Hanson. So he commissioned the Romans Fontana sisterswho also collaborated with Edith Head on Hepburn’s costumes for the film, her wedding dress.
Elegant and sober, Hepburn’s first wedding dress tells the vision of a style icon: demure bateau neckline, long sleeves, and a playful high-low hem. In the end, the actress gave up on the wedding and asked the Fontana sisters to donate the model: «I want the dress to be worn by another girl for her wedding, perhaps by someone who could never afford a dress like mine : the most beautiful and poorest Italian girl you can find», said the future UNICEF ambassador.
The couturiers found a recipient, Amiable Altobello, a 27-year-old girl from Latina (whose story reads like a novel), and they invited her to their atelier in Rome for modifications. “The whole experience must have been incredible for her,” she says Kerry Taylor, founder of Kerry Taylor Auctions from London. “They had three daughters and five grandchildren. Amiable said: “I had a happy marriage, so the dress brought me good luck” and that was the feeling when the dress was delivered,” says Taylor, who auctioned the dress in 2009 for $23,000. “The whole family felt such pride in having something so special and so unique.”
The Balmain wedding dress
After a whirlwind romance, Hepburn married the American actor Mel Ferrer on September 25, 1954 in Bürgenstock, Switzerland.
Earlier that year, in March, he accepted an Oscar for his performance in Roman holidays with a white lace dress by Givenchywhom he had first met in 1953 while shopping at his Paris atelier for clothes by Sabrina. But it is interesting to note that Hepburn’s friend He has not made her first official wedding dress. In contrast, Hepburn walked down the aisle in an above-the-ankle dress, designed by Pierre Balmain, with puff sleeves, a fun collar and a big bow on the back. With elbow-length gloves and a wreath of flowers, Hepburn’s bridal look still looks fresh and contemporary seven decades later. “She was a woman in her own right,” she says Sean Hepburn Ferrer, the couple’s only son. “When you think about what wedding dresses are out there today – with all the froufrou and long trains and all that – she chose something modern.”
After launching his first collection as an apprentice to designer Lucien Lelong in the late 1930s, Balmain has designed for the likes of Katharine Hepburn and Ava Gardner. But “knowing how quickly the preparations for the wedding were taking place, [l’abito da sposa della Hepburn del 1954] it was probably something already ready», says Hepburn Ferrer, who kept the Balmain dress «dépouille» of his mother and exhibits it in his exhibition «Intimate Audrey». “She was pretty quick at making decisions.”
Hepburn Ferrer also wonders if her mother asked Givenchy for a wedding dress. Also, she thinks that the wedding dress in the movie *__Cinderella in Paris __*by Hepburn from 1957, with its distinctive bateau neckline and dropped waist, was a makeover: “Maybe it’s a joke between Hepburn and Givenchy,” she says, “knowing their sense of humour, it could be that Givenchy said: « I couldn’t make your real wedding dress. So she let me make you one for the film ».
Givenchy’s pink wedding dress
But in the 1969, Givenchy designed Hepburn’s unexpected but classically chic pink wedding dress and matching scarf to wed Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti.
The colorful minidress is “definitely non-traditional, but it was very period-inspired,” she says Cindy DeLaHoz. The author of Audrey and Givenchy reminiscent of the Mod funnel neck jackets designed by Givenchy and the bright colors Hepburn wore in How to steal a million dollars from 1966 and his white scarf, not exactly incognito, in the film Charade of 1963.
“He wanted something different and that reflected the direction that fashion was taking»adds De La Hoz, admiring Hepburn’s wedding accessories, which consisted of white stockings and her signature shoes. “Even those, they were cutting edge.”
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Source: Vanity Fair
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