DESIGNING FOR KEEPS

Having married into fashion royalty, homeware designer Zoë de Givenchy is continuing the legacy of the family's legendary couturier, Hubert de Givenchy.

- TESS DE VIVIE DE RÉGIE

Queen Mary (Née Donaldson) of Denmark isn’t the only ordinary girl married into an aristocratic family in Europe.

Meet Zoë de Givenchy, the Australian who has been embedded in the bosom of France’s well-heeled Taffin de Givenchy clan since marrying J.P. Morgan banker Olivier—nephew to the family’s most famous relative, Count Hubert Marcel James Taffin de Givenchy. One of the most celebrated couturiers of the 20th century, Hubert, who died in 2018, achieved popculture immortality after designing the little black dress worn by Audrey Hepburn in the iconic Tiffany & Co. window scene in the 1961 film adaptation of Truman Capote’s 1958 novella Breakfast at Tiffany’s. The pair also enjoyed a lifelong friendship.

The first time de Givenchy met Hubert in 2008, she was invited for lunch at Hôtel d’Orrouer, the grand rue de Grenelle hôtel particulier de Givenchy shared with his lifelong partner couturier (and Olivier’s godfather), Philippe Venet. “When the butler put the napkin on my lap, it was still warm from the iron and I could smell lavender,” she reflects. “Everything was just so.”

During his lifetime, Hubert would commission works from highly specialised European ateliers to help them survive the quieter winter months—in particular, dishes made of faïence, a type of glazed pottery. He encouraged her to continue the practice, a tradition that became the genesis of her own line, Z.d.G., which was founded in 2020.

“Initially, it was about finding beautiful objects for myself,” she explains. “Then friends would come for dinner and say, ‘Oh my god, what is this? Where do I find it?’”

Matches asked her to produce a capsule tableware collection for them—and Z.d.G. was born.