| Summary: | In 1995, John Galliano made fashion history when he was appointed to the creative helm of Givenchy - the first British designer to ever head a French couture house. After only two seasons, Bernard Arnault, the chairman of LVMH, decided that Galliano’s brilliance was needed to reinvent the house of Dior, the crown jewel of the conglomerate’s fashion empire. He brought in another Brit, Alexander McQueen, and for the next five years, McQueen’s fusion of exquisite tailoring skills and hard-edged street style pulled the conservative French house kicking and screaming into the 21st century. In 2001 McQueen, increasingly unhappy with LVMH, left to become part of the Gucci group, clearing the way for the third British designer, Julien Macdonald, to take over at Givenchy. Macdonald’s flamboyance never quite gelled with the elegant Hepburn heritage of the house and in 2005 LVMH appointed a young Italian designer named Riccardo Tisci to inject his own hard-edged, modern style to the house. He was the first designer to actually meet with the master himself.
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