How Breakfast at Tiffany’s changed the life of fashion designer Marie France Van Damme
- The Canada-born, Hong Kong-based designer first saw the film in the 1970s and was fascinated by Audrey Hepburn
- ‘I thought she was the most elegant woman I’d ever seen – the epitome of chic,’ she says of Hepburn’s character
Romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961) stars Audrey Hepburn as eccentric New York cafe society woman Holly Golightly, who schemes to snare a rich husband while gradually becoming romantically entangled with her struggling writer neighbour. Directed by Blake Edwards and based on the 1958 Truman Capote novella of the same name, it is famed for Hepburn’s ultra-chic outfits, designed by Givenchy.
Canada-born, Hong Kong-based fashion designer Marie France Van Damme explains how the film changed her life.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s is about fashion and it’s about New York. I first saw it on television in the 1970s and just thought “Wow”. It made me look at the fashion business differently.
Audrey Hepburn fascinated me. I thought she was the most elegant woman I’d ever seen – the epitome of chic. This was the era of disco and Hepburn was so different from the other actresses we looked up to as young girls, with their big hair and miniskirts. She was impeccable.
Instantly, I thought this is what fashion’s all about. Everything shown in the film was so much more attractive than what I was living through and it was how I wanted to live my life.
