Hepburn created her own style rules that many still follow today
Credit: Mark Shaw
NEED TO KNOW
- Audrey Hepburn is featured on the cover of this week’s issue of PEOPLE
- Sons Sean Hepburn Ferrer and Luca Dotti tell PEOPLE about the star’s legacy as a style icon
- PEOPLE also chatted with Pamela Keogh about what makes Hepburn’s style endure and inspire
Audrey Hepburn‘s style made her one of the most enduring icons of fashion.
When it came to fashion, however, the actress wasn’t always about high-brow, designer looks. Her ability to look incredible whether dressed up in a little black dress or down in jeans and a sweater is what made her “a symbol of style that still survives,” sons Sean Hepburn Ferrer and Luca Dotti tell PEOPLE in this week’s issue.
“She loved clothes and was very aware that fashion had been a very important part of her fame. It made her confident, on stage and offstage,” Dotti tells PEOPLE.
“She was, however, practical about fashion. By the time she was living in Switzerland in the countryside, working in Africa, her wardrobe was basically jeans, sneakers, and T-shirts, with comfortable sweaters. And she wasn’t against that, but some women insist on always be at their top smart attire. She loved comfort about it, about things.”
Pamela Keogh, author of Audrey Style, tells PEOPLE, “Audrey had great clothing. She just didn’t have a ton of clothing. And she had no problem rewearing clothing. In Audrey’s time especially, clothing was expensive. It was really well made, so you hung onto it and you took care of it.”
Credit: Bettmann
Dotti recalls his mother giving away clothes after determining they didn’t suit the stage of life she was in, “Even very important pieces that many other women would’ve kept as a trophy in their wardrobe, even if they wouldn’t wear it anymore.”
When it comes to the pieces that defined Hepburn’s style — the oversized white button down, the little black dress and so many more — Hepburn’s styling was ahead of her time and came to define timeless fashion.
“When she opens the door in Breakfast at Tiffany‘s, she’s actually wearing a tuxedo shirt. It’s obviously a man’s starched tuxedo shirt that she’s wearing a belt with nothing underneath it. That would have been kind of scandalous and cool at the time, to the people who picked up on it,” Keogh offers as an example.
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“It was a risque and subtle hint to the audience that she picked up that shirt from some guy and she was wearing it to sleep in. For the time, that would have been pretty scandalous. With Audrey, it’s like a perfectly pressed white shirt. Perfect. Her hair and makeup is flawless. She looks beautiful,” she continues.
Keogh notes that those statement pieces like a menswear white shirt and a pair of large sunglasses were actually worn by Hepburn before they were seen on Jacqueline Kennedy, another style icon of the time.
Ferrer adds, “These younger generations have this wonderful, kaleidoscopical view of her. Some know the lady with the glasses and the trench coat. Others have seen a little piece of a movie. The third knows she went to Africa and the fourth has seen her on TikTok wearing a beautiful Givenchy coat, jacket and suit. And all of them together have a vision of who Audrey Hepburn is.”
Credit: Audrey Hepburn Estate Collection
Of her bond with Hubert Givenchy and the looks it resulted in, Dotti says, “The incredible thing about Hubert de Givenchy’s fashion is that it’s still very modern. And the way my mother wore it is still very modern.”
For Givenchy, Dotti continues, “She was his muse and his friend. Hubert was inspired by my mother. My mother was reassured by Hubert. But he listened to her comments because he always said the incredible thing with Audrey is she wanted less, less decoration, less belts, less this. And that created a very modern look.”
Keogh agrees, adding, “Audrey, half a century later, you could almost pick anything out and say, ‘I can wear that right now.’ And that’s rare. She could wear a Givenchy gown or she could wear black little Capri pants and ballet flats and still look fantastic.”
She concluded, “Even if Audrey was really casually dressed, her hair, her makeup, it was always on point.”
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