Givenchy: From a Forbidden Fragrance to “The Finishing Touch of Style and Elegance”

“You must, if possible, be born with a certain elegance. It is part of you; it is yourself.”

― Hubert de Givenchy, from a 2010 interview at the University of Oxford

Basic Information

• Founded: 1952, the fashion house; 1957, Parfums Givenchy
• Founder: Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy (1927–2018)
• Parent company: LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, part of the group since 1988
• Official website: givenchybeauty.com​

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The Founder and the Origins of the Brand

The Dream of a Boy from Northern France

Born on February 20, 1927, in Beauvais in northern France, Hubert de Givenchy’s full name was Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy. The “de” in his name is a title bestowed on noble families, and he was also called “the last aristocrat” of the fashion world.

His great-grandfather, Pierre-Adolphe Badin, was a noted painter, and artistic sensitivity passed down through the generations. But a great trial came in childhood. His father, Marquis Lucien Taffin de Givenchy, died suddenly when Hubert was only two or three. His mother and grandmother would exert a strong influence on his upbringing.

His interest in fashion awakened early. At the age of ten, he reportedly saw his first fashion show in Paris and decided to become a designer. At seventeen, Hubert left wartime Beauvais and set out alone for Paris. The year was 1944.​

Apprenticeship: Learning from Great Masters

Arriving in Paris, Hubert enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts, the national school of fine arts, and trained under Jacques Fath. He then honed his skills and aesthetic judgment in a succession of ateliers representing the leading names of Paris fashion: Robert Piguet in 1946, Lucien Lelong in 1947, and Elsa Schiaparelli.

The encounter that most profoundly transformed Givenchy’s life was his meeting with Cristóbal Balenciaga in 1953. Balenciaga then stood at the pinnacle of haute couture, and Givenchy later said:

“Balenciaga taught me everything I know. Attention to detail, not sewing a button where it serves no purpose, not needing to add a flower to make a dress beautiful… There is no need for unnecessary details.”

― Hubert de Givenchy​

The depth of his devotion also comes through in the following statement:

“There is Balenciaga, and there is God (There’s Balenciaga, and the good Lord.).”

― Hubert de Givenchy​

His mentor’s teaching formed the core of Givenchy’s aesthetic: “Strip away what is unnecessary and let the silhouette alone speak.”​

1952: The Youngest Couturier Emerges

In 1952, twenty-five-year-old Hubert de Givenchy opened his house at 8 rue Alfred de Vigny in Paris’s eighth arrondissement. He later moved to 3 avenue George V in 1959.

His first collection, Les Séparables, presented on February 2 of that year, advocated a separates style of individually interchangeable tops and skirts, overturning the concept of a complete coordinated look then taken for granted in haute couture. A standout was the white cotton Bettina blouse, named after model Bettina Graziani. Vogue praised it as “a wonderful first collection.”

A Fateful Encounter with Audrey Hepburn

In 1953, Audrey Hepburn visited Givenchy’s atelier while looking for costumes for the film Sabrina. Givenchy later recalled this first meeting in an interview with Vogue:

“When I agreed over the telephone to meet her, I thought Katharine Hepburn was coming. So I was surprised to see this radiant, petite, energetic young woman. I immediately told her frankly that I could not provide all the clothes she needed for the film. But she was so charming and persistent…”​

Drawn to Hepburn’s personality, Givenchy agreed that she could visit the atelier the next day. When she tried on clothes from the current collection there, everything suited her. The relationship that began in this way developed into a “special love story” lasting forty years. In a 2010 interview, Givenchy himself described Hepburn as “so fresh, incomparable, sincere, and full of joy,” adding, “From the day I met Audrey in 1954 until her death, our friendship continued.”​

The little black dress Hepburn wore in the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany’s remains one of fashion history’s most famous costumes, known as a Givenchy creation.

1957: The Birth of Parfums Givenchy and the “Forbidden Fragrance”

On May 31, 1957, five years after founding his fashion house, Hubert de Givenchy established Les Parfums Givenchy in Beauvais, France. The perfume division was managed primarily by Hubert’s brother Jean-Claude de Givenchy, an aviation executive who had worked at Air France’s New York office.

An unforgettable story surrounds the creation of the first perfume, L’Interdit. In fact, the scent had already been created in secret in 1954. As a gift for Audrey Hepburn, Givenchy commissioned fragrance company Roure Bertrand Dupont, now Givaudan, in Grasse, the perfume-producing center in southern France, and dedicated the creation by perfumer Francis Fabron (1913–2005) to her alone. Hepburn loved the scent and reportedly kept its identity secret even when asked what perfume she was wearing.

In 1957, when Givenchy decided to launch the fragrance officially and told Hepburn, she is said to have replied:

“Je vous l’interdis! (Je vous l’interdis! = I forbid you!)”

― Audrey Hepburn

Those words became the perfume’s name. Hepburn eventually agreed to its release and appeared in the advertising campaign herself. This is the origin of the name L’Interdit, meaning “the forbidden” in French. It was also a revolutionary event as the first time in history that a film star appeared in a perfume advertisement. The fragrance reportedly sold 4,000 bottles on its first day alone.

Givenchy himself considered fragrance “the finishing touch of style and elegance,” and this philosophy became the starting point for the brand’s perfumery.

Joining LVMH

In 1979, Parfums Givenchy was sold to France’s Institut de Développement Industriel, or IDI. In 1988, LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton acquired the Givenchy couture group. Hubert de Givenchy retired in 1995 and died on March 10, 2018, at the age of ninety-one. On his death, French President Emmanuel Macron paid tribute: “France has lost a master of elegance, creation, and invention.”

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The Brand’s Commitments

The Philosophy of “Fragrance as the Finishing Touch of Style”

Givenchy’s perfumery cannot be separated from the aesthetic Hubert de Givenchy pursued throughout his life. Believing in an aesthetic of subtraction in clothing, he said of couture:

“Like great painting or architecture, couture gains the true meaning of line by stripping away, stripping away, and stripping away again in the making of a garment. The more you add, the more you pile on, the stranger it becomes. You must try to leave only the silhouette. That is the intelligence of a garment.”

― Hubert de Givenchy​

This idea, that stripping things away reveals their essence, has also been reflected in perfume as a spirit of highlighting the character of the materials themselves without relying on unnecessary ornament. Givenchy’s beauty website describes fragrance as “something that envelops the skin as couture clothes the body.”​

Bottle and Packaging Design

Givenchy fragrance bottles often have sculptural forms reminiscent of couture silhouettes. The bottle for Ysatis, released in 1984, was designed by Pierre Dinand in a vertical Art Deco style resembling a chess piece. The bottle for Ange ou Démon, released in 2006, takes its motif from chandelier crystals and was designed by Serge Mansau.​​

The new bottle for L’Interdit, revived in 2018, was designed with a “soft squareness” as a tribute to the 1957 original. Its androgynous silhouette was reportedly intended to symbolize both Hepburn and the new muse, Rooney Mara.​

In recent years, packaging has also become more environmentally conscious. In 2021, the Gentleman series’ bottles were redesigned, reducing glass use by up to 30%. The brand set a target of improving the environmental impact score, or EPI, of all its products by 40% by 2025 compared with 2017.

Materials and Musk: The Beauvais Factory

Perfume is manufactured at a factory in Beauvais, France, also Hubert’s hometown. Built in 1968, its location reportedly reflected the Givenchy family’s roots in the Oise department, the region’s manufacturing tradition, proximity to glass manufacturer Pochet du Courval in the Bresle Valley, and the ready availability of skilled female workers. A second perfume factory was built in Vervins, in the Aisne department, in 1995.

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The Fragrance Lineup

Givenchy’s perfume history spans nearly seventy years.

The Classics: From the Founding Years to the 1990s

L’Interdit / 1957
A legendary creation by Francis Fabron. A floral-aldehydic scent centered on rose, jasmine, violet, tonka bean, and other notes. Aldehydes, ingredients popular in the 1950s, give floral notes a freshness reminiscent of soap or frost. Long remembered as “Hepburn’s fragrance,” it was discontinued in the 1990s and revived in 2002.

Monsieur de Givenchy / 1957
One of the first men’s fragrances, released in the same year Parfums Givenchy was founded. Like L’Interdit, it was composed by Francis Fabron. Its classical composition has top notes of carnation, cinnamon, pepper, and lemon, followed by lavender, musk, sandalwood, and other notes.​

Givenchy Gentleman / 1974
A patchouli-leather masterpiece by perfumer Paul Leger. Top notes of honey, cinnamon, rose, jasmine, and tarragon lead to patchouli, cedar, and orris root, with a deeply lingering base of leather, amber, civet, oakmoss, and other notes. Considered a revolutionary creation that challenged the direction of 1970s men’s perfumery, it is still called “a landmark of patchouli fragrances” among fragrance enthusiasts.

Ysatis / 1984
A major creation said to have been composed by perfumer Dominique Ropion using at least 100 fragrance materials. An animalic oriental chypre, it moves from top notes of mandarin, bergamot, and galbanum through a rich floral heart of jasmine, rose, and tuberose to a deep woody-oriental base of patchouli, vetiver, sandalwood, oakmoss, and other notes. At launch, its advertising based on Venice’s masked carnival attracted attention. In the mid-1980s, the fragrance accounted for around 78% of Givenchy’s total U.S. sales, while the group’s overall U.S. revenues reached $83 million at the time. This success is also said to have prompted the subsequent creation of Xeryus.​

Xeryus / 1986
A woody-green fragrance centered on artemisia and cypress, conceived as the men’s counterpart to Ysatis. Keryus was initially considered as its name, but Yves Saint Laurent objected that it was too similar to its own Kouros, leading to the current name.​

Amarige / 1991
A bright floral-oriental combination of gardenia, mimosa, precious woods, and other notes. With a sweet, full-bodied scent evoking the shores of the Mediterranean, it became one of Givenchy’s signature women’s fragrances.​

Organza / 1996
Released the year after Hubert de Givenchy’s retirement, this floral-oriental women’s perfume takes its name from organza, a delicate floral-patterned textile.

Pi / 1998
A masculine woody-oriental creation by perfumer Alberto Morillas. Named after the mathematical constant π, or pi, it has a distinctive scent layering tangerine, neroli, basil, rosemary, vanilla, cedar, and other notes.​

Modern Lines from the 2000s Onward

Very Irrésistible / 2003
A floral-spicy fragrance jointly created by perfumers Dominique Ropion, Carlos Benaim, and Sophie Labbé. Givenchy’s first floral-spicy blend also attracted attention for its sculptural bottle, known as the “sculpture bottle.”​

Ange ou Démon / 2006
Composed by perfumers Olivier Cresp and Jean-Pierre Bethouart, this floriental scent mingles angels and demons, purity and sensuality. Its notes include mandarin, saffron, thyme, lily, orchid, ylang-ylang, tonka bean, and vanilla. During Uma Thurman’s time as the face of the line, Ange ou Démon was marketed in the Middle East as Ange ou Étrange.​

L’Interdit Reborn / 2018 Onward
In 2018, LVMH completely rebranded L’Interdit. With actress Rooney Mara as its new muse and the concept of “the thrill of crossing a forbidden line,” it introduced a new creation contrasting white flowers, orange blossom, sambac jasmine, and tuberose, with a “black accord” of patchouli, vetiver, and ambroxan.

Haute Parfumerie: L’Atelier de Givenchy

Launched in 2014, L’Atelier de Givenchy is a high-end unisex collection. Each perfume centers on a precious material, creating a world that combines the material with motifs from Givenchy’s couture collections. It began with seven fragrances: Ambre Tigré, Bois Martial, Cuir Blanc, Chypre Caresse, Néroli Originel, Oud Flamboyant, and Ylang Austral, later expanding to nine. The bottles are simple rectangles of thick glass, distinguished by black caps wrapped with colored thread resembling a spool. Each color corresponds to its fragrance’s “olfactory tone.”

La Collection Particulière — Olfactory Portraits

La Collection Particulière takes its inspiration from the distinctive personalities Hubert de Givenchy welcomed into his private residence. The individual olfactory portraits are united by a contrast between floral and woody notes. Alongside L’Atelier’s material-and-couture approach, this collection offers personality as another way into the fragrances.

MMW, introduced in 2022, provides a concrete example. Discussing the Olivier Cresp creation, then artistic director Matthew M. Williams connected its comforting palo santo-centered woods and precise construction to his own fashion vision. He imagined an elegant, unconventional personality rather than a wearer defined by gender.

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Incidentally…

• Givenchy’s trademark 4G logo combines four Gs in a square. It actually took its current form in 2003, when typographer and graphic designer Paul Barnes designed the combination of four Gs. It is said to originate in a logo created by Hubert de Givenchy himself, but the establishment of the present 4G symbol is dated to 2003.
• In an interview with Vogue about his first telephone arrangement with Hepburn, the young Givenchy revealed that he “thought Katharine Hepburn was coming.” A misunderstanding that confused Audrey and Katharine Hepburn’s names is said to have opened the greatest fashion friendship of the twentieth century.​
• L’Interdit reportedly sold 4,000 bottles on its first day, an exceptional start for a couture perfume in the 1950s.​
• For the launch of Gentlemen Only, Givenchy chose British actor Simon Baker for its advertising campaign.​
• Givenchy’s perfume factory is in Hubert’s hometown of Beauvais and is now a combined perfume and cosmetics facility employing approximately 400 people. A second factory began operating in Vervins, in the Aisne department, in 1995, employing around 250 people there as well.​