How Audrey Hepburn Cultivated Influence Through a Simple Neckline
The story behind her lace Givenchy gown revealed the actress was more than an ingénue
“I want to say thank you to everybody who in these past months and years have helped, guided, and given me so much. I’m truly, truly grateful and terribly happy.”
When Audrey Hepburn came to collect her Oscar for 1953’s Roman Holiday, she kept her eyes looking downward, her exaggerated lashes fluttering on her cheeks, as she slowly but deliberately spoke her speech. Her reluctance to make eye contact with anyone in the crowd or play to the camera drew audiences’ eyes to the neckline of her dress. The lace fabric sweeps across her collarbone in a straight line in a way that is at once demure (the lace!) and thoroughly modern (the neckline!).
According to her biographer, Barry Paris, Audrey wasn’t an Oscars shoe-in. It was From Here to Eternity Deborah Kerr’s year. But the Academy proves time and time again that it loves an ingénue, and no one has ever been more of an ingénue than Audrey in Roman Holiday. She entered the public consciousness as a princess, the royal America never had, and could never quite shake that image. An article…
