How to do Hollywood Glamour like Audrey Hepburn

Old Hollywood Glamour:Audrey Hepburn and The Little Black Dress |vintage fashion

From Audrey Hepburn to Deborah Voigt, from Coco Chanel to Betty Boop the Little Black Dress, lovingly abbreviated to the LBD has long been considered the ultimate item for women of all social classes. This week at Darling, we look at the vintage staple that decades on still makes heads turn and mouths drop…

So what about the dress?


Before the 1920s the colour black was associated with long term grieving, by which the various ways the colour was worn would indicate a certain stage of mourning. To wear black outside of this context was considered highly inappropriate. However, as the death toll rose as a result of WWI and the Spanish flu epidemic, it became more common to see women wearing black.
All this association changed in 1926 when Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel had her design of a short simple black dress published in American Vogue. The dress was affectionately referred to as Chanel’s Ford a reference to the brand’s T model which popularised the automobile, because of the marketability, versatility and affordability of the dress’ design.
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The popularity of the dress continued to rise; it became a representation of economic elegance as it survived hard times such as the Great Depression and another world war, which saw everything rationed from textiles to food supplies.
The film industry also benefited, with the introduction of Technicolor, while other colours were heavily distorted during filming, the monotone garment prevailed. This eventually led to the dress gaining serious credentials in the middle of the twentieth century when Audrey Hepburn donned a Givenchy version in adapted novella  Breakfast at Tiffany’s and as the saying goes, the rest is history. Fast forward to the 2006 and that same little black dress sold  at a Christie’s auction on 5 December, for $920,000 (approximately £467,200), almost seven times its pre-sale estimate, not bad for a dress once associated with  great loss.
Today the LBD remains a feature in many of our wardrobes today, with its constant stylistic evolution, disappearing sleeves and reappearing hemlines. The versatility of the dress allows it to be dressed down with pumps and a jacket, but with a few pearls and a touch of sophistication and we can have our very own Hepburn. In fact we at Darling encourage it….

Dresses Ms Hepburn would have been proud to wear?