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The Battle of Versailles
Robin Givhan
The Night American Fashion Stumbled into the Spotlight and Made History
Flatiron Books
March 2015
On Sale: March 17, 2015
320 pages
ISBN: 1250052904
EAN: 9781250052902
Kindle: B00NKB9U7A
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
On November 28, 1973, the world's social elite gathered at
the Palace of Versailles for an international fashion show.
By the time the curtain came down on the evening's
spectacle, history had been made and the industry had been
forever transformed. This is that story. Conceived as
a fund-raiser for the restoration of King Louis XIV's
palace, in the late fall of 1973, five top American
designers faced off against five top French designers in an
over-the-top runway extravaganza. An audience filled with
celebrities and international jet-setters, including
Princess Grace of Monaco, the Duchess of Windsor, Paloma
Picasso, and Andy Warhol, were treated to an opulent
performance featuring Liza Minnelli, Josephine Baker, and
Rudolph Nureyev. What they saw would forever alter the
history of fashion. The Americans at the Battle of
Versailles- Oscar de la Renta, Bill Blass, Anne Klein,
Halston, and Stephen Burrows - showed their work against the
five French designers considered the best in the world -
Yves Saint Laurent, Hubert de Givenchy, Pierre Cardin,
Emanuel Ungaro, and Marc Bohan of Christian Dior. Plagued by
in-fighting, outsized egos, shoestring budgets, and
innumerable technical difficulties, the American contingent
had little chance of meeting the European's exquisite and
refined standards. But against all odds, the American
energy and the domination by the fearless models (ten of
whom, in a groundbreaking move, were African American) sent
the audience reeling. By the end of the evening, the
Americans had officially taken their place on the world's
stage, prompting a major shift in the way race, gender,
sexuality, and economics would be treated in fashion for
decades to come. As the curtain came down on The Battle of
Versailles, American fashion was born; no longer would the
world look to Europe to determine the stylistic trends of
the day, from here forward, American sensibility and taste
would command the world's attention. Pulitzer-Prize
winning fashion journalist Robin Givhan offers a lively and
meticulously well-researched account of this unique event.
The Battle of Versailles is a sharp, engaging cultural
history; this intimate examination of a single moment shows
us how the world of fashion as we know it came to be.
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