Henry Wilkinson, Givenchy and Hepburn specialist

11/01/22 • 34 min

Jonathan Joseph and Rachel Elspeth Gross interview Henry Wilkinson to discuss the process of restoring a 1960's Givenchy dress that was worn by Lee Radziwill and Jackie O.

Henry is a fashion historian who specializes in Givenchy and Audrey Hepburn. He's got this habit of finding, acquiring and then bringing back to life pieces from the house but of stories which might rival the women who wore them.

Henry distinctly remembers as a child, being gifted physical copies of the classic films My Fair Lady and Breakfast at Tiffany's. For Henry, his early love of fashion is permanently entwined with Hepburn and Givenchy, although he will admit to a certain amount of Cecil Beaton 's influence.

Two weeks into lockdown in the United Kingdom, Henry found to borrow his words, a tangible link to the Past, not many of us could see a listing for an early 1960s, Givenchy bodice plus maybe five inches of skirt and see something special but Henry did. Now he's completed the process of restoring what has turned out to be a significant one of a kind piece from more than 60 years ago. If that's not enough to impress you. After a ton of research, it turns out that the dress had originally been owned and worn by Lee Radziwill & Jackie O.

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Jonathan Joseph and Rachel Elspeth Gross interview Henry Wilkinson to discuss the process of restoring a 1960's Givenchy dress that was worn by Lee Radziwill and Jackie O.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Previous Episode

Sarah Scaturro Conservator, Curator, and Historian

Sarah Scaturro is a conservator, curator, and historian. She formerly worked at the Met's Costume Institute and then left that position to become the Eric and Jane Nord chief conservator at the Cleveland Museum of Art at the Met.

Like many of the people we have spoken with Sara's career path was not a straight line. She had a fantastic teacher early on whose support led to her study in chemistry in college. And as you'll hear her say in this interview, the places where stem and fashion overlap are incredibly important to her as a conservator.

You probably saw Sarah Scaturro's name all over the news coverage, which followed this year's Met Gala. The show was titled America an Anthology of Fashion, a certain person whose name we're not going to mention here (Kim Kardashian), wore a famous dress designed by the Oscar winning costume designer Jean Louis, and had been warned by Marilyn Monroe. From the New York Times to Women's Wear Daily, Sarah explained why this mattered why it was dangerous to fashion museums and to private collections. It's a long story and not one that we're going to get into here today.

Today we will be discussing Sarahs career as a whole and the importance of STEM in fashion.

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Next Episode

Benson Roberts, Fashion Designer

Jonathan Joseph and Rachel Elspeth Gross interview Benson Roberts to discuss fashion academia, learning to sew, and how to communicate with employees and politicians.

Benson Roberts is a fashion designer and entrepreneur who has been working in the apparel industry for almost 40 years. His work is celebrated, awarded, and has been seen on the covers of magazines, on fancy red carpets, and on musicians who are household names. He founded a fabric company, does beautiful custom design work, and teaches apparel design.

Benson also co-hosts the podcast Advanced Fashion Disruption with Megan Summerville, a past guest here, and one of Little Red’s favorite humans. Together, they are working to make fashion better. Benson has a lot of lessons to teach, some truly valuable stories to share that we all can learn from.

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