A Paragraph About Versailles I Almost Skipped

On a paragraph nearly skipped, a couturier's own faïence, and the French artisan workshops that came with the name

I was going through the Financial Times magazine HTSI the way I do so often, cover to cover, hoping that I’ll find something to feed my insatiable curiosity. Then I spotted a small piece tucked into The Fix. Three, maybe four paragraphs. A headline that made me smile, something about serving Versailles, and a photograph of a woman in a linen apron standing among cabbages. I nearly turned the page.

But there was a name in there that caught my attention. Givenchy. And a garden that snagged harder. Versailles. And something in me, the part that can’t leave a loose thread alone, said, go and look properly before you decide this is nothing.

You know the feeling I mean because I’ve written about it before. The research dry gully that turns out to have a seam running through it, if you’re bothered enough to keep digging. So I continued to dig.

Then it went onto the paragraph that I'd almost skipped.

Her name is Zoë de Givenchy. My first assumption, a lazy one, was the obvious one that she married a famous surname, borrowed it for a business. It happens all the time. Except she isn’t from anywhere near French fashion. She’s from Melbourne, and before any of this, she was in public relations and brand management at Credit Suisse. She met her husband, Olivier de Givenchy, in London in 2008. Olivier is the nephew of Hubert de Givenchy, the couturier whose name built the house. That’s the fact everyone reaches for first. I reached for it too. I kept going, because that fact on its own wasn’t nearly enough to explain the cabbages.

Annual Subscribers and Mighty Supporters, come and sit with me a while. This is where it gets good.