A look back at Clare Waight Keller’s time at the helm of Givenchy

As she departs the French maison, we mark some of her finest moments
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Naomi May14 April 2020

It was announced on Friday that Clare Waight Keller, artistic director of Givenchy, will part ways with the brand at the end of her current – and first – contract.

The British designer has been at the helm of the storied heritage brand for the past three years and, during her tenure, has been behind a slew of changes at the fashion house.

Waight Keller was appointed to the role in March 2017, making her the first-ever female artistic director to hold the coveted position in the brand’s 68-year history. She replaced Riccardo Tisci, who had served in the post for twelve years.

Prior to accepting the job at Givenchy, Waight Keller led the charge at fellow French fashion house Chloé, which she helped to become the most profitable brand at Richemont (the luxury goods conglomerate which owns it.) In the year she left, the brand made an estimated €400 million in sales. This led to speculation that she would use her position at Givenchy to steer the label that Hubert de Givenchy founded in 1952 back to its ultra-feminine Couture roots.

Indeed, the Birmingham-born designer was quick to implement changes.

Meghan Markle arriving to her wedding ceremony in 2018 (Getty Images )
Getty Images

Most notably, she was responsible for returning Givenchy back to the couture schedule, presenting a total of five couture collections during her tenure. Waight Keller also designed the hotly-anticipated wedding dress for the (then) Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle.

A pregnant Markle went on to award the designer with the British Designer of the Year Womenswear Award at the Fashion Awards in 2018. In her speech, she described Waight Keller’s understanding of the personal and emotional connection that women have with their clothing. Markle said the designer’s focus on “supporting and empowering each other, especially as women” is what drew her to ask Waight Keller to design for her in the first place.

In an emotionally-charged Instagram post, Waight Keller wrote, “As the first woman to be the Artistic Director of this legendary Maison, I feel honoured to have been given the opportunity to cherish its legacy and bring it new life.” Continuing, she thanked the “unsung heroes and heroines behind the scenes, for their contribution from product to communications and retail, and every global team member, partner and supplier in between,” and shared her excitement for what’s to come, the details of which we’ve yet to hear.

Markle presenting Waight Keller with her Fashion Award in 2018
Getty Images

Since sharing the post which announced her departure from the brand, Waight Keller has proceeded to reminisce on her favourite moments from her time at the brand. She thanked Cate Blanchett, Julianne Moore and Gal Gadot for their support in championing her designs on the red carpet, and yesterday shared a message of why menswear is so important to her, and why she endeavoured to introduce it at Givenchy.

“Menswear has been part of my vocabulary since the beginning when I first started working in fashion,” she wrote. “Menswear has always been something that enormously infused my womenswear. I am always borrowing from the boys. So at Givenchy this found its way through all my collections. The difference for me at Givenchy was the ability to launch the first-ever Men’s Couture, to indulge the extraordinary embroidery techniques with the rigours of tailoring brought a new exuberance to the silhouette and a whole new client to the house and the Red Carpet.”

Waight Keller cut her teeth designing for men, having worked in menswear at Ralph Lauren and Pringle, and presented her first standalone menswear show in January 2019 at an intimate showcase with just 17 models. In fact, Givenchy is one of the few brands where sales are split 50/50 between womenswear and menswear.

Waight Keller thanked Cate Blanchett for wearing this look from her inaugural collection for Givenchy to the InStyle Awards in October 2017 (Getty Images )
Getty Images

In total, she designed ten collections per year for Givenchy. The stylist’s last collection for the fashion house was the fall/winter 2020 show, which was shown in Paris on 1 March, according to WWD.

In a statement, Givenchy, which is owned by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, the world’s largest luxury goods company, said it wanted to “warmly thank Clare Waight Keller for her creative leadership, in contribution to our latest chapter”.

A successor has not currently been named, although the luxury conglomerate stated it would announce a new “creative organisation” at a later date.

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