Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M.: Audrey Hepburn, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and the Dawn of the Modern Woman (5 page)

And so it was that in the summer of 1953, before
Roman Holiday
had opened, Audrey Hepburn arrived in Paris for a shopping spree that would not only change her life, but as
a pivotal blow to Dior's reigning New Look, the lives of all women out for a
new
new look.

DIOR'S NEW LOOK

During the Second World War, strict rationing rendered opulence outré, and simplicity politically correct. That all changed on February 12, 1947, when Christian Dior launched his first postwar line, christened the “New Look” by American
Harper's Bazaar
. With his yards and yards of soft sumptuous fabrics, tight fitted jackets nipped in the waist, and full blooming skirts, Dior did away with the brawny shoulder pads and durable wartime fabrics of the early forties. In their place, he reintroduced the hourglass figure and the long-lost bust: all at once, women were allowed to be womanly again. (In fact, the New Look was so lavish, it was briefly condemned by the British Board of Trade.)

Now, to be truly
façonnable,
a woman needed girdles and waist cinchers. For those who couldn't afford Victorian corsetry, there was the practical (but shapely) shirtwaist dress, which, in the words of its master, Edith Head, was “tight enough to show you're a woman and loose enough to show you're a lady.” In other words, the New Look was Edith's Look, but by this time it was an old look. What Sabrina Fairchild needed was to look new.

31½-22-31½

It was decided, perhaps by Gladys de Segonzac, that Cristóbal Balenciaga would be too busy with his upcoming collection to
see to the costuming needs of the then-unknown star. She offered instead to make a call on Audrey's behalf to Hubert de Givenchy, a brilliant young designer (twenty-six to Audrey's twenty-four) who had worked under de Segonzac at Schiaparelli before leaving in December of 1951 to establish his own house at 8 Rue Alfred de Vigny. As a strident Balenciagan acolyte, Givenchy was the ideal runner-up. At Schiaparelli he discovered elegance, but it was Balenciaga who taught Givenchy to listen to the material, and to design for the person, not the design. It would always be Balenciaga's voice that told him what was right and what was wrong, and not just on the garment, but in his shop: during a fitting, the client's street clothes were ironed so they would be fresh when she left.

At six foot six, the gentle giant Hubert de Givenchy was known to friends and regulars as
le grand Hubert
. Since the time he was a boy, Hubert, who could have been a basketball forward if he wasn't so elegant, valued nothing above simplicity and beauty, even if they came—here Edith would gasp—at the expense of function. Givenchy never thought about, as he said, “whether the skirt is wide enough to walk in, [or] how the wearer will look getting into and out of a taxi,” and instead would, “consider the beauty and artistic value of fashion, not its utility.” One of few exceptions was the white linen smock he wore in the workroom, which he kept buttoned over his suit like a chef's coat. All who entered would notice it, a sign of bygone gentility in an industry rife with the rush of what's next. Indeed, it was not speed or flash, but fabric that made Givenchy's head swirl. Fabric, to him, was the stimulus of creativity. The smell of silk, of a fresh bolt of cotton—these were the joys of his life. Balenciaga, his master, was the same way.

“Pardon, monsieur,” Givenchy heard. He was hunched over his drafting table. “Mademoiselle Hepburn is here to see you.”

One can only imagine Givenchy's surprise when, stepping away from designs for his upcoming winter collection, he realized the Hepburn in question was not Katharine, but a five-foot seven-inch, 31½-22-31½ stripe of a girl with short hair, tiny pants, ballet flats, and straw beribboned gondolier's hat that said Venezia.

“Bonjour!” she said.

“Bonjour, mademoiselle,” Givenchy replied. “Who are you?”

“Audrey Hepburn!”

“Ah,” he said. “Not Katharine?”

“Not Katharine.”

With her big eyes and thick eyebrows, she looked to him more like a fragile animal than an actual human.

“Monsieur,” she began. “I just made a film called
Roman
—”

“I am very sorry, mademoiselle, but I'm very busy with my new line. If you'd excuse me—”

“Yes, yes, I understand, but—”

“Mademoiselle, I don't have many assistants, and I am pressed for time.”

It was no empty excuse. Charmed though he was, Givenchy was simply too busy.

“Please?”

“No, dear, I am sorry…”

“Please, please, please?” she insisted. “There must be something that I can try on!”

This could go on, Givenchy thought, for a long time. Better to appease her for the sake of peace and quietude than stand here all afternoon.

So he listened as she described the story of Billy Wilder's new film, which would star Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, and her, of course, in the title role, and how Edith Head was designing the secondary costumes, but that she was sent on a mission from Paramount to purchase only the voguest—and with her own money—for her very own collection, which she would wear for certain scenes—

“Okay,” he said, “okay,” and led her inside with the proviso that he had not the time to create something new, but she was welcome to peruse the previous season's collection. If she found anything that interested her, Givenchy said, she could have it.

Audrey happily agreed and with her signature effervescence, she went straight to work. To those who looked on, she betrayed no sign of the uneasiness she might have felt at having to make such an expensive and indeed perspicacious decision. Although she had experience as a dressmaker—wartime rationing had forced it upon her—here, in the summer of 1953, Audrey was hardly a fashion expert. As countless pre-Givenchy photographs attest, she undoubtedly knew what looked good on her, but when it came to
la mode,
the girl was
naïf
. At the time she sailed into 8 Rue Alfred de Vigny, it's likely she hadn't owned a single piece of haute couture.

Offscreen, Audrey favored skirts, but more often wore slacks (they were more practical, she said). She liked short heels on her shoes (her feet, she knew, were big), and always, wherever and whenever she could manage them, the coziest sweaters imaginable. In short, simplicity set the pace for her wardrobe, as did physical comfort. It sounds obvious (who
wouldn't
want
to be comfortable?), but in this era of straps and bands and pointed bras, the directive was closer to no pain, no gain.

And so, without any aesthetic agenda, willful resistance to the times, or urge to do anything other than what she thought was right for her, Audrey Hepburn set into motion a kind of polite rebellion. As the imposing Hubert de Givenchy looked on, she selected a slim suit of gray wool, which she wore with a lighter chiffon turban; a long white gown of embroidered organdy; and finally, a black cocktail dress held up by two tiny bows at both ends of a wide and narrow neckline (once called a
décolleté bateau,
soon to be renamed
décolleté Sabrina
). With a long V-shaped back culminating in a strip of buttons, the dress featured a snug bodice offset by a ballerina-shaped skirt, and unusually spacious armholes that didn't conceal Audrey's tiny shoulders. Neither, for that matter, did its narrow neckline conceal the collarbones Edith Head had so painstakingly camouflaged in
Roman Holiday,
or the Civil War–sized waistline she attempted to overcome with a long skirt. So artfully did the dress embrace—and even celebrate—Audrey's so-called faults, that when beheld by audiences of 1954, it communicated not just Sabrina's transformation and Audrey's burgeoning influence as a style icon, but the new schismatic potential of what being a woman could mean.

Audrey would become the muse Givenchy had been waiting for; and he, the Pygmalion she needed to bring her to life. Their working relationship would grow over the course of the next five years before reaching its high point in
Breakfast at Tiffany's,
but by then, Audrey and Hubert would be like a needle and thread, symbiotic to the point of total congruity.

MEL

Audrey's life had shot up to full speed, stretching her time and tired body in all directions at once. Where she once moved laterally, working ceaselessly from one day to the next, she was now pushed upward by the very new tasks of growing her star in America and abroad. There were press junkets, studio directives, and temporary accommodations. There were planned introductions, faceless names, and nameless admirers. Merely floating was a thing of the past. Now Audrey flew. Looking below her, behind her, she could glimpse traces of her home in Arnhem, her first meeting with Colette,
Gigi,
and in the distance, James Hanson. They dropped away from her in copper flourishes, like rusted pennies down a well.

In London that summer of 1953, Audrey met the actor-director Mel Ferrer. It was Gregory Peck who introduced them. He had thrown a party in Audrey's honor at his flat in Grosvenor Square. The occasion was the British premiere of
Roman Holiday
.

Audrey was not yet the celebrity she was about to become, but with all of the magazine covers and the buzz about her debut, it was obviously only a matter of time. The night of the party, all eyes were on her.

From his place against the wall, Mel Ferrer watched Audrey's eyes, silently imploring her to look up and see his. Once or twice he caught her trying not to be caught, and she opened up a smile that exploded the room. Describing it later, Ferrer would not be ashamed to say he loved her immediately, nor would
he hesitate to admit he was well aware of his advantage; previously, at the urging of Gregory Peck, he had called Audrey at her mother's. When Audrey picked up the phone, Mel could tell from her enthusiasm that she meant it when she said she loved him in
Lili,
though exactly how much, and in what way, neither of them had any idea.

Here, in person, she drank in the full bottle of him for the first time. He was a gruff and slender man in his middle thirties—over ten years older than she—and had that look she liked. He was direct, shining with stamina, and obviously unafraid of enjoying the attention he so clearly knew was his. Others saw arrogance in Mel, but at that moment Audrey only saw conviction; as someone who didn't have it, she was quick to spot it in others.

In the low light, Mel and Audrey talked of
Sabrina,
which was to begin shooting in September, and of the possibility of doing a play together sometime soon. How fun that would be. They laughed and touched and said goodnight.

THE MOST SOPHISTICATED WOMAN AT THE GLEN COVE STATION

Well into production on
Sabrina,
with the clock ticking and the finish line fast approaching, Billy Wilder and Ernest Lehman were still bickering over the script, which remained, for the most part, unwritten. Cursing at each other into the night, the writers turned out drunken pages on through the morning as the actors arrived for makeup and the lights were put up around the set. There wasn't a scene or line or story point
too small to fight over—nothing escaped their attention—but there was no argument like the one that raged over Sabrina's—and ultimately Audrey's—celibacy.

“Billy wanted Bogie to sleep with Audrey Hepburn,” recalled Lehman. “I said we can't do it, no dice, people don't want that, particularly for Audrey Hepburn. She was just a slip of a girl…gentle and sweet. She had won the Academy Award for
Roman Holiday
. He was furious at me for insisting they don't sleep with each other. I wouldn't give in on this point.” Night after painful night, Lehman and Wilder seesawed through it, first trying the character one way (“What if she—no, never mind…”), and then another (“What if
he
…”), starting the night at Billy's house, and ending it, broken down and crazy, on the pavement outside of the Beverly Hills Hotel at three o'clock in the morning. They were scheduled to shoot the scene at seven and the only words they had on the page were INTERIOR—LARRABEE OFFICE—NIGHT.

When 4:30 rolled around, they called it quits. Billy had his assistant director cancel Bogie and Audrey's morning call, and Lehman's doctor told them to take a vacation from rewrites. Two weeks prior, Lehman collapsed from overwork and before that, he even had a few hysterical weeping episodes. Far from improving, the doctor saw that Lehman was actually getting worse, and wrote him a prescription for fourteen days without Billy Wilder. But if Billy took time off every time someone told him he had to take time off, he wouldn't have become Billy Wilder, which is why, days later, Billy and Ernie were back at it again, smoking and boozing and shouting at each other over whether or not Audrey Hepburn should be allowed to copulate when Dr. Spritzler arrived to pay a surprise visit on his
patient. Shit. Wilder thought for a moment and then did what for the future writer of
Some Like It Hot
was the only natural thing to do: he leapt into the closet.