Audrey's Attic: 13 of the style icon's classic looks

 Writing about Audrey Hepburn’s style is an exercise in avoiding cliches. The challenge: what is there left to say about her poise, understated elegance, lifelong dedication to impeccable tailoring, and her enduring friendship with Hubert de Givenchy, that hasn’t already been said?

Hepburn’s power is her ubiquitousness. She’s so embedded in our understanding of fashion history; her outfits on and off screen both totally timeless and emblematic of the sartorial shifts and changes of the latter half of the 20th century. The publicity photographs for 1961’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s have graced thousands of teenage girls’ bedroom walls, and many of the clothes from her films — including the little black dress she wore as Holly Golightly, and the humble polo neck in Funny Face (1957) — are now the definition of iconic.

It’s a style that always remains distinctly hers, though, as evidenced in a new documentary Audrey, released on 30 November. Made by the award-winning team behind BAFTA-nominated McQueen, it’s no surprise that clothes feature heavily, but the film also shares a rarely seen intimate look at Hepburn’s life via archival footage and interviews with friends, family and colleagues.

The result is an insightful and moving portrayal of the Belgian-born actress who lived through the trauma of German-occupied Holland during the second world war, with the teenage Hepburn suffering malnourishment as a consequence of food scarcity. The star’s natural talents for performing became her tool for raising both local spirits and money for the Dutch resistance: dancing at secret invitation-only events where funds were collected for those leading the underground fight against the Nazis.

The stardom that followed, which saw the actress move to Hollywood and enchant millions, concealed a life spent privately seeking stability and love. Her relationship with fashion was about companionship too, with Hubert de Givenchy fulfilling the role of friend and world-leading creative collaborator — something former Givenchy creative director Clare Waight Keller recounts in the film.

“Fashion came into my life when I had my very, very first couture dress made by Hubert de Givenchy,” Hepburn once said. “The beauty was extraordinary.” It was not friendship at first sight, however. When the French couturier first met the actress, he thought he was going to be meeting Katharine Hepburn and was nonplussed at their initial encounter.

It was when Hepburn subsequently wore several outfits by the designer in her 1954 film Sabrina that the duo’s lifelong collaboration began, with the actress becoming the ultimate recipient of Givenchy’s refined approach to luxury dressing. Standout looks include an exquisite double-breasted wool skirt suit in Sabrina — its silhouette perfectly marking protagonist Sabrina Fairchild’s newfound sophistication after a stint in Paris — and the white gown with a ribbon-tied beaded bodice that Hepburn wore to attend the 1975 Academy Awards.

The hairband

The hairband has undergone a renaissance in recent years thanks to major catwalk endorsement from designers including Prada, Fendi and Simone Rocha. Although Hepburn wore her fair share of tiaras, she also appreciated the comparatively simple pleasure of a hairband: whether a neatly bow-topped alice band or an unfussy white length of fabric keeping her hair off her face while practising at the barre.

The waist belt

In Roman Holiday (1953), the film that catapulted Hepburn to stardom, the actor stars opposite Gregory Peck as a princess dispensing with royal duties to sneak around Rome. A fresh-faced Hepburn lights up the screen, all easy elegance in a blouse and voluminous skirt, cinched at the waist. It’s the details that make the look: the nonchalantly rolled-up sleeves, the jaunty striped neck scarf, ice-cream in hand, and the backdrop of the Italian capital’s meandering backstreets.

The headscarf

Hepburn loved a headscarf both on and off screen, often knotting a silk scarf over a beehive (her micro-fringe peeking out). Arguably her most glamorous style trick, the headscarf makes cameos in Funny Face, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and spy caper Charade (1963), accompanied by leather gloves and dark glasses.

The black polo neck

If there’s a working-from-home look we still find ourselves regularly lifting from Hepburn’s on-screen style CV, it’s the dance scene in Funny Face (1957), where Hepburn (playing Jo Stockton) dances her way through Paris’s intellectual underbelly in a black polo neck, black trousers and black penny loafers. Naturally, Hepburn is sinuous as a cat, and full of joy.

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