Count Hubert James Marcel Taffin de Givenchy is unusually tall I was pleased to discover, a fact that, while perhaps not the most remarkable thing about him, I do feel is rather suitable for a man whose surname alone is iconic, and whose career as a designer has already gone down in history as one of the most distinguished and influential. Even sitting down he was quite intimidating.
Thankfully though, his stature was the most imposing thing about him, and in every other way he was just as you’d imagine an aristocratic 83 year-old Frenchman: charming, polite, heavily accented (you must frenchify every subsequent quotation in your head – nothing screams chic like a strong Parisian lilt), knowledgeable and slightly arrogant (but in a delightful and endearing way) and of course hugely elegant in an understated but perfectly fitted dark jacket, dark tie and pristine white shirt.

If you had to describe the Givenchy aesthetic in a word, it would probably be ‘elegance’, but what does this actually entail? ‘You must, if it is possible, be born with a kind of elegance’, I am told. Cripes. No hope for me then, and after that I was definitely too scared to ask him what he thought of my outfit (I admit I tried a little – alright a lot – harder that day than normal. Don’t judge me, you’d all do the same), especially as I had just spotted a glaring ketchup stain on my trousers. Thank goodness for the table between us.

Despite his glamourous reputation, however, he was surprisingly sensible and down to earth on the subject of fashion, which he described simply as ‘mon passion’. There was none of this precious talking about clothes as ‘garments’, and certainly no patience for the unwearable and unflattering styles that so often go down today’s catwalks and are hailed as genius. No, his mandates, with him since he started the house of Givenchy in 1952, at a mere 25 years old, are simple: ‘you must respect fabric, respect style and make pretty things and pretty dresses to embellish people, not to make people look ugly, because that, for me, is not my conception of fashion’.

Sounds straightforward enough, but as he points out, ‘the simple things are the most difficult, the little black dress for example’. So how does one go about mastering the art of dressmaking and becoming a great designer? Far from easy, I am warned, and great humility is required; ‘You must learn, you must look, you must understand, you must have someone as your master, an example to admire. And you must select the best if you want to be part of the best.’ For Givenchy, when he first came to Paris in the late 40s, this example was Balenciaga, ‘the most important designer at the time’, whose clothes were ‘architectural’ and ‘strong, modern, wonderful’. Though he never worked under Balenciaga, he did work for a time under Jaques Fath, something he is absolutely grateful for; ‘the best thing is to learn with a good atelier, a good cutter, a good fitter, this is the most important thing to start in fashion’. Basically, respect your elders people.

Although he professes that the reason why fashion is so wonderful is that it is constantly changing, and though at his prime he was radically modern in his aesthetic, today’s modernity is clearly not something he is at all interested in. My question about the impact of fashion blogging, for instance, is one I regret as soon as it’s uttered, though it gets a laugh, and the reply that the internet is ‘trop compliqué pour moi’. He also remains diplomatically vague on the subject of current trends, only cryptically repeating that ‘it is a different thing’.
Indeed, ask him about what he thinks of the Givenchy label now, and he becomes visibly uncomfortable, admitting that he found and still finds it difficult to watch the progress of a label which bears his name, but of which he is no longer master. (He sold Givenchy in 1995.) The most quiet he’s been throughout the interview, he confesses that nowadays he doesn’t look at its new collections; ‘I don’t think I have any interest in that any more. C’est mieux comme ca.’

The inevitability of change though is something that he has clearly accepted (and is apparently able to discuss at great length), but he does seem somewhat sad about it. ‘La vie change, les besoins changent, everything is so different, you must accept the reality, but you must be there and say yes, c’est la vie, c’est comme ca. We must just be happy that for many years we had wonderful times, wonderful things, beautiful fabric, beautiful people, beautiful memories. Voila.’

It is rather in talking about the past that he seems at ease, and he reminisces about his heyday, the age of real Hollywood glamour, with great fondness. ‘I don’t think now you ‘ave really great star as the other time… before you ‘ave Judy Garland, Audrey Hepburn – these are movie stars, but now, you ‘ave star, but no one ‘ave the real caché, do you know what I mean?’ He reels off the names of the various movie stars he dressed: Sophia Loren, Elizabeth Taylor, Kay Kendall, and is shocked when I don’t know who Kay Kendall is exactly. ‘You see?’, he says to the room (he has a fairly large entourage), ‘the jeunesse’. I giggle sillily, and even more so when he says ‘oui, mademoiselle!’ Oh dear. Was I trying to flirt? Or did I just wish I was his granddaughter listening, enraptured, to him talk about the good old days? Either way, I’m sure Freud would have something to say on the matter.

None of those starlets were as special to him as Audrey Hepburn though, and as soon as I ask about her, he is away, describing her as ‘so fresh, so unique, so loyal’, ‘full of joy’, and their relationship as a kind of ‘special love affair’. Givenchy dressed Hepburn for all of her contemporary films from Sabrina onwards, which he tells me is ‘proof of loyalty, and friendship of course. More and more we were together, more and more we understand each other and more and more we love each other. And from that day on when I meet Audrey in 1954 until she die is a friendship still’.

When I finally ask if he ever tires of fashion, or could ever have considered a different career, he seems taken aback, and answers with an incredulous ‘non, because this is my dream to be a dress designer. This is my joy and really my life. And it is a fabulous thing to be a dress designer, fabulous. To give life to fabric, to try to make beautiful things, make something move well, the harmony of colours, is absolutely fantastic. Everything gives you inspiration. You are very like a butterfly, you must have antennae and have good reception, and every moment the creativity is there, you must capture the little things to help you to create one thing, and this is why it is a wonderful career.’
What an epitome of a gentleman. A little rambling perhaps, and with a definite penchant for philosophising, tricolon and slightly eccentric similes, but I’ll put that down to age and the language barrier. Who can begrudge someone who is so fond of their ‘wonderful’ mother, is so impassioned by fashion after almost 60 years in the business, still looks super sharp and says things like, ‘this is my opinion, and I think I am right.’?

A conversation from my first term at Oxford:
“Where are you from?”
“Norwich. Have you ever been?”
“Yeah.”
“What did you think?”
“Have you seen that film, The Wickerman?”

I can see where the impression of Norwich as a pagan commune headed by Christopher Lee may have come from. Norfolk can seem like an odd, silent place; the sort of place where to venture out of the main city centres is to subject yourself to the distrustful gaze of the deformed locals; where the landscape’s oppressive and unbroken flatness means you can run but you can’t hide; a place where, aside from the odd Sloane-on-tour to their country houses or a seaside resort, few come to and fewer seem to leave.
Reaching Norwich by train from London (a city which, for several of my angst-ridden teenage years, was the proverbial Moscow to my combined Three Sisters) takes the traveller across the fenlands. These sparsely inhabited marshes are where punting was supposedly invented, so the local people could silently approach herons and capture them before they had the chance to fly away. They also have the dubious distinction of having been the focus of studies into the psychological effects of inbreeding for decades.

Arriving at Norwich, a sense of this otherness remains: there is a certain type of facial formation which I like to hope is unique to the Norfolk county capital, and an oddness which I am not the only one to have felt. The Norfolk accent and dialect, I am told by English-studying friends, are of particular interest to linguists owing to their insularity: for a brief idea of those Norwich-vowels, try pronouncing the local joke, “Q: What do you call a transparent woman from Norfolk? A: Clare”.

But aside from the underlying impressions of otherness, Norwich is really just a medium-sized city – pop. 367,000, including suburbs – like any other. Less The Wickerman, more Desperate Housewives. When I told a friend from home that I would be writing this feature, she asked, “How do you write five-hundred words straight down the middle of the road?”, while my (non-Norwich) housemate sighed, and wistfully quoted Larkin: “Nothing, like something, happens anywhere”.

The essential Norwich facts: The city prides itself on having been ‘England’s second city’ in the middle ages, due to it having been the centre of the textiles industry; a claim which I feel has something of the modern day celebrity claiming to be big in Japan. It has the rare distinction of two cathedrals (only Liverpool can match the East Anglian jewel on that count), so is technically a city twice over. It is the home of Colman’s Mustard, Delia Smith and Alan Partridge.

Perhaps most surprisingly, it’s also one of the frontrunners to become the UK’s capitals of culture in 2013. When my mother told me the news I – like the two dimensional parody of the young man who goes to Oxford and attempts to distance himself from his provincial origins I am – almost choked on my Pret crayfish and avocado. Norwich: where town planners built a Pizza Express into the main library? Norwich: where ‘street entertainment’ consists of The Puppet Man, an elderly gentleman with clear learning difficulties who takes to the main shopping street and dances to pop tunes with his hand puppets? But, at the same time, Norwich: home of the annual Norfolk and Norwich Festival, dozens of independent restaurants, shops and bars; green spaces, medieval architecture, a few theatres and a University. Why shouldn’t it be there?
Like the road sign says on the approach to the town: Norwich is “a fine city”. It’s true, it’s a fine place, and anyone would be lucky to grow up there. Perhaps there’s a reason why no-one ever leaves. (Disclaimer: I’m not going back).

The statistics vary but ask anyone in Oxford and they are sure to know someone who has suffered a bicycle theft. Take a look around next time you are cycling through the city: hundreds, possibly thousands of bicycles locked and leaning against walls, lampposts, even other bicycles. For the would-be bicycle thief it must seem too good to be true. Surely no one will notice if one or two or, as we discovered, nine bicycles go missing?

To see just how easy it could be to steal a bicycle in Oxford, we used my own bicycle and locked it up in nine different places around the city centre. With a camera filming surreptitiously, we used bolt cutters to cut the chain and ride away down busy streets, surrounded by students and tourists. All thieving was done between noon and three on a Saturday and Sunday afternoon. Below are some highlights, but the short version is:

Bike thefts – nine
Civic responsibility – zero

Rad Cam Square

The fence around the Radcliffe Camera is a magnet for student cycles, and the building itself is hugely popular with tourists. We leave the bicycle on the fence near to All Souls and I approach up Catte Street from the High Street. Tourists are everywhere. It’s amazing how many people come all the way to Oxford and still see the city through a camera lens, including the couple I discover standing right beside my bicycle. They cheerfully make space when I say ‘Excuse me’, very politely, and we even exchange some casual banter as I work on the chain. ‘Did you forget the key?’ ‘Something like that.’ As I ride away, entirely unmolested, I notice that the gentleman has been videotaping the entire experience.

The Missing Bean

How about a captive audience? We lock the bicycle across from the plate glass front of this Turl Street coffee shop, creating a sort of premium seating ground, with table service, from which to watch the show. This time I take special care to approach the bicycle with a skulking gait, looking back and forth over my shoulder, really hoping that no one/everyone is watching this. I’m so intent on looking nefarious that I cut the wrong link in the chain. (The links have to be cut twice, once on each side, before the chain falls away.) It takes over a minute and three cuts to finally remove the chain, all of which takes place in the sunny spotlight opposite a full house. The review is mixed: no one applauds as I ride away, but no one makes a move for the exit, either.

New College Quad

Strangers are what you expect to find walking around Oxford, anyone can come and go in this city’s streets. But college precincts are different. Those walls aren’t just to keep back the steady march of time. The bicycle rack at New College is just inside the main gates. I wave as I pass the porters’ lodge, and they smile right back. As I emerge into the quad a New College student walks past, sees the bolt cutters (by this time I’ve given up any pretense at concealment) and immediately looks away as he rushes out of the College. My bicycle is at the far end of the rack, as far into the quad as possible, and as I work to cut the chain two male field hockey players approach to lock-up their own bicycles. The one nearest me watches as I remove the lock and start to ride away. Then he understands: ‘Are you nicking that?’ (Well done!) ‘You got it,’ I say, and wave to the porter again as I cycle away.

Broad Street Bicycle Rack

Desperate for attention, we lock the bicycle in the busiest bicycle rack in Oxford, on Broad Street opposite Balliol College. I heft the bolt cutters onto my shoulder and make a big show of walking through the rack, looking for the easiest target. There is a man locking his own bicycle about ten feet away from where my bicycle awaits. Surely this man will say something; his bicycle could be next! One final look around, cut, cut, the chain is broken and loudly poured into my basket. The man still hasn’t acknowledged what is happening. It takes a few seconds to negotiate the crowded rack but then I am away, again, wondering whether this man would have helped cut the chain if we’d asked nicely.

In the end, not a single person attempted to stop the thefts. The most common reaction was to look away or just walk past as if nothing unusual were happening. Is it really so common for a young man wearing bright red jumper, plaid trousers and no socks to walk around with bolt cutters? (I feel certain that people who carry bolt cutters at least wear socks and probably also work boots, unless they are stealing bicycles, in which case they probably wait for darkness and then wear all black and avoid crowds anyway.) While we executed nine successful thefts, less than half could go in the video because – splendid irony – there were too many students and tourists around to make a good video about bicycle theft. Over half the shots were blocked by foot traffic. On one occasion I was literally lost in the crowd, having to fight my way through the crush of a walking tour outside Trinity College gates.

Incidentally, if you wait until the tour is just about to start, the guide will offer you a discount. Even if you are carrying bolt cutters.

5th: The Fruit Challenge

Select a group of ex-finalists. Select a range of variously-textured pieces of fruit, one species of fruit per participant. Draw lots (or play Fives) to decide who gets which fruit. Then eat your allocated fruit with its skin on, as you would an apple. Oh wait, you drew the pineapple or the banana? Sucks to be you.

4th: Hug a tutor

Perhaps, just a secret aim of a certain member of Cherwell’s Lifestyle team, but surely there’s been a special tutor, who you just HAVE to show some gratitude to. It might be tricky to find the right situation, but think about what your grandchildren can tell their friends… ‘Did you know, my grandma/pa hugged an Oxford don?’

3rd: Kiss a fresher

The end of finals often means the beginning of ‘real life’, where ‘sharking’ is as foreign a concept as ‘Michaelamas’ to a non-Oxonian. See off your final days in Oxford as the ultimate chance to behave irresponsibly, before you enter the ‘real world’ and start your ‘life’. You should know better, but hey, it’s not cool to leave with a squeaky clean reputation is it?

2nd: The ‘Big Three’ day

Peep Show’s Mark Corrigan summarises his idea of the perfect day: ‘Museum, lunch and a snooze… The Big Three!’ He’s right. What could be more improving, satisfying and simultaneously restful than a trip to the Ashmoleum, a boozy déjeuner sur l’herbe and a solid nap?

1st: Go nude

Unfortunately (some might say), public nudity is not socially acceptable. But all that library time means you’re forgiven for forgetting social norms.
Why not go for an outrageous streak around colleges you’ve never used your Bod Card to politely visit? Or how about a cheeky skinny dip in the Cherwell? Daytime nudity is far more outrageous than hiding your bits in dusky nightime, by the way.

Disclaimer: Cherwell is not responsible for any Weil’s disease complaints from those who heed these celebratory tips.