“Always Remember That Creativity Comes First”: What We Learned From Givenchy’s Sarah Burton At London’s Lightroom
- Mahoro Seward
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Amid fashion’s current blitz-speed game of musical chairs, we haven’t exactly been short of creative director debuts over the past few seasons – with a good number still to come. One of the most hotly anticipated dawnings of a new chapter, though, came just a few weeks ago in Paris, where Sarah Burton presented her first collection at the helm of Givenchy.
Bowing at 3 Avenue George V, the house’s historic home, the show was immediately recognised as a triumphant moment in contemporary fashion history, recentring a diverse perspective on femininity and the importance of craftsmanship. Last night at London’s Lightroom, we gained rare, firsthand insights into the process behind Burton’s first show in her new role, as she joined Sarah Mower, Vogue’s chief critic, for the latest iteration of Vogue Conversations.
Before delving into the Givenchy show, though, the pair discussed the career stint that the designer is perhaps best acclaimed for: the 26 years that she spent at Alexander McQueen – the first 13 as the house’s namesake founder’s right-hand, the latter as its creative director. As well as the myriad, blockbuster highlights of her time there – including designing the Princess of Wales’s wedding dress – Burton spoke of how the small scale of the team when she first joined ultimately turned out to be a crucial factor in her formation as a designer. “It was such a tiny team of us in Hoxton Square – it was Lee, Trino [Verkade], Katy [England] and a couple of other people,” she recalled, “but what was amazing was that it was so small, it was really like a training school. Lee taught me about everything: how to pattern cut, how to put a zip in, how to sketch a jacket. It was an amazing learning experience.”
Of course, McQueen was at the helm of Givenchy from 1996 to 2001, where Burton is creative director today. Lightroom attendees were immersed in a rich visual landscape of fittings and backstage imagery, shot in the run-up to the designer’s debut autumn/winter 2025 show, as well as unreleased images of patterns discovered in the walls of the original Givenchy ateliers, developed for Hubert de Givenchy’s very first collection. “I always go back to the very beginning, because, with whatever it is you’re doing, you have to look backwards to go forward,” Burton explained. “I went to the archive and I spoke with the amazing woman in charge there, and she showed me this picture of a brown bag. What happened was that, two years ago, they found all of his original patterns from that first collection in the walls of his original ateliers,” she continued, noting that the house was asked to come collect them tout suite, or risk having them disposed of. “It started to make me think about things that were embedded in the walls of the house,” and, more broadly, the maison’s founding codes, Burton explained.
These were highlighted through archival photography of de Givenchy’s first show and lookbook, with the collection’s clean-lined, archetypically ’50s silhouettes, counterposed with annotated fittings images from Burton’s debut for the house, presented almost three-quarters of a century later. Speaking through the collection’s running order, Burton underscored the thematic significance and construction details of particular looks and pieces – how the viral bullet bra, for example, was intended as an empowered “expression of femininity”, or how the bold, hourglass tailoring was created in collaboration with both the men’s and women’s ateliers. “With the tailoring that I like, it’s great to get the women’s atelier to create the shape, and then the men’s atelier to canvas and press the jacket in a certain way,” she explained.
This ethos of collaboration coloured a conversation around the importance of casting in expressing Burton’s vision, with the designer unpacking the process that unfolds between her, stylist Camilla Nickerson and casting director Jess Hallett. “It’s a real conversation about representing all of the women that inspire us,” Burton said. “Very early on, Jess and I will start to talk about who those women are and how they’re going to feel,” noting the importance of instilling an expansive, diverse sense of who those women are.
As the evening came to a close, Burton reflected on the qualities that she thinks have carried her to her current position as one of the fashion industry’s most respected creative leaders, highlighting the importance of self-conviction. “I always think that, in fashion, nobody ‘gives’ you a job – you make your job your own,” she quipped. “You have to work very hard, of course, but you have to always be authentic to yourself. And always remember that creativity comes first – no compromises.”
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