The Right—and Wrong—Way to Reference Audrey Hepburn
BY LILAH RAMZIJanuary 22, 2025
It’s all but impossible to go too far in fashion these days. Post Lady Gaga’s meat dress, we’ve seen celebrities on red carpets dressed as chandeliers, cradling replicas of their own heads, and bearing locks of their hair as avant-garde minaudières—and that’s only at the Met Gala!
Yet on Monday night, Ivanka Trump managed to do something truly egregious, stepping out for her father’s Liberty Ball in a Givenchy design first seen on Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina.
More than just a fashion icon, Audrey Hepburn was elegance personified. This started early: It’s been reported that as a teenager, she danced in secret to raise money for the Dutch resistance. Later, at the height of her fame, she shirked the Hollywood spotlight to raise her sons in Europe, then spent her final years gardening near Lake Geneva and championing UNICEF’s efforts to aid children facing war and famine. Her lasting legacy is one of style, yes, but also substance—something that demands thoughtful, measured tribute, not mimicry.
When discussing Hepburn’s history as an arbiter of taste, pop culturists often cite another Givenchy look: the black satin column she wears in the opening scene of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961). But the Sabrina dress marked an important turning point. After Hepburn’s breakout role in Roman Holiday(1953), costume designer Edith Head sent her to Paris to source some dresses for her next film, Sabrina. In so doing, Hepburn met Hubert de Givenchy, who would go on to dress her in eight different films. (He also designed the wedding dress she wore to marry her second husband, Andrea Dotti.)
Of course, the polarizing first daughter dressing up as a woman who is so universally beloved is ironic to the point of dark comedy—especially when considering Hepburn nearly starved to death in Nazi-occupied Holland. But beyond that, save for the placement of the embroideries, Ivanka Trump’s version of the Sabrina dress was nearly identical; she commissioned Givenchy to more or less photocopy their archives. (Similarly uninspired: the opera gloves and side-swept bangs.) The final effect had all the depth and ingenuity of an “Audrey Hepburn Style” Pinterest board.
It’s also worth remembering this is not the first time Trump has co-opted a Hollywood fashion icon’s style; at her sister Tiffany’s wedding, she wore a replica of Grace Kelly’s gown in To Catch a Thief. It didn’t work then, either.
Trump’s error, to be clear, was not in the reference itself. Nods to Audrey Hepburn on red carpets from New York to Los Angeles (and beyond!) are as common now, 30-plus years after her death, as they ever were. At the 2021 Met Gala, Kendall Jenner’s sexy, spangled Givenchy gown paid homage to the dress Eliza Doolittle “could have danced all night” in from My Fair Lady—as did the black lace dress from Givenchy’s fall 1997 haute couture collection, designed by Alexander McQueen, that Kaia Gerber wore to last year’s Academy Museum Gala. And with allusions to Hepburn’s costumes in Funny Face, Roman Holiday, and Charade, Emily in Paris has practically turned Lily Collins into a walking Audrey Barbie doll, just for fun.
The crucial difference between these examples and Trump’s look? The basic understanding that fashion thrives on reinvention, not redundancy. None of these were carbon copies, but instead reinterpretations—telegraphing Hepburn’s chic with a knowing wink. And secondly, to dress up in head-to-toe Hepburn (any day but Halloween) suggests some level of parity with Hepburn, while a more subtle reference creates distance between the reverential wearer and the icon.
Hepburn’s Sabrina gown was an inspired rendition in its own right, riffing on 19th-century silhouettes while setting a new standard for mid-century glamour. Trump’s approach? No better than tired cosplay; it’s giving community theater, not couture. Givenchy, the American people, and Hepburn herself, frankly, deserve better.
