for slightly freaky red-carpet looks. And
last year, when she designed the dress that
Meghan Markle wore to wed Prince Harry,
Waight Keller sealed her reputation as a
defining voice of feminine glamour, a prop-
agator of fashion as fantasy—of dreams that
felt accessible, modern.
But all the while, she felt there was room
to grow in menswear. Unlike with other big
fashion houses, where womenswear is the
more lucrative machine, Givenchy’s busi-
ness is “50-50” she told me. And since her
spring 2018 couture debut, which provoc-
atively included men’s clothes, a buzz had
been building. Suddenly, she said, there
were “all these A-list actors and musicians
immediately wanting to come to the house
and order and really wear this idea of a more
flamboyant man, but with a strong structure
to it, a strong sense of tailoring.”
She knew she could push the vision fur-
ther—that as a menswear designer, she had
more things to say. So in January she held a
confident but understated presentation—
fluid, glam tailoring and sportswear, with
a sense of unplaceable retro—during Paris
Men’s Fashion Week. The excitement she
was generating amplified in the spring, when
Givenchy announced its mas-
sive show at the menswear-
only mecca Pitti Uomo.
Though the show was now
only two days away, Waight
Keller seemed anarchically
calm. Given the duties she
juggles, Waight Keller might
be the hardest-working designer in fash-
ion. But you wouldn’t know it, either from
her presence on Instagram, a place where
fashion-industry people love to share
footage of themselves flinging around the
world in pursuit of the next exotic #inspo,
or from her demeanor. She radiates calm
and approachability—a striking contrast
to the French couturier archetype (usu-
ally: angry, and a man). I asked her how
she balances all these collections, many
of which require simultaneous work and
separate visions, and she said simply,
“I’m organized!”
One would have to be to handle just her
growing responsibilities in menswear, a
fashion category that suddenly finds itself
at the center of the industry’s attention.
Within LVMH, the conglom-
erate that owns Givenchy,
menswear has become a major
focus: Louis Vuitton, Dior,
and Berluti all appointed
new menswear designers in- The star power in par-
ticular of Dior’s Kim Jones and
Vuitton’s Virgil Abloh—not to mention that
of their supporters and friends, including
A-list models and musicians—has brought a
new level of excitement to men’s clothing
and the attendant fashion weeks, especially
in Paris.
“This is why I’m moving towards men’s
shows, because I think it now really warrants
it,” Waight Keller told me, excited about the
possibilities for menswear to become as
much an obsession—even a lifestyle—every
bit as grand and glamorous as womenswear.
“I want to start moving the menswear up to
that level,” she said. I ask her about the show
in a couple of days and about the message
she wants it to convey. “It’s the independent
vision of menswear,” she said simply, like it’s
no big deal.WAIGHT KELLER HAS a way of making the
remarkable seem understated—sensible,
even. This includes her own arrival at
Givenchy, in 2017, which was greeted as a
major moment in fashion’s recent feminist
wave. For over a century, the great irony
of the Paris ateliers was that while theyMany designers borrow
from menswear in
their womenswear, but
Waight Keller does
the opposite, blending
the fantasy of women’s
with the tailoring
ingenuity of men’s.