There was perhaps nobody better suited to usher in Sarah Burton’s new era at Givenchy than Elle Fanning—and no better occasion than the 2025 Oscars. At the 97th Academy Awards, Fanning wore the designer’s first-ever custom haute couture look as creative director of the storied French house.
The moment came just ahead of Burton’s inaugural Givenchy show in Paris on March 7, but it was a landmark in Fanning’s career as well. “Sarah has become a dear friend and collaborator,” Fanning tells Vogue. “This year marks my first time ever attending the Academy Awards. And it’s an honor to be the first woman to wear a Sarah Burton couture Givenchy design!”
Now, the two are entering a new chapter together. “There’s always an emotion, a feeling, when you put on the clothes. Fittings are the most important part to me—that’s when everything comes to life,” Burton says of realizing Fanning’s Oscars dress. “When Elle and I were trying on the toiles, how she felt led us to the final choice.” Fanning concurs: “As usual, we started with sketches, which were all amazing, but the look really came alive when Sarah and I got in the room together. She flew to L.A. to fit me in person,” she says. “We’ve done this together before for Cannes, but I will never tire of watching her create…cutting and draping right on my body! Five dresses hung on the rack, but there was a white toile so elegant and eye-catching, we all silently knew it was the winner.”
Burton took inspiration for Fanning’s Oscars look from Hubert de Givenchy’s first collection, referencing a dress worn by Ivy Nicholson in 1952. “It all starts with silhouette, and as I’ve been looking at the very beginning of the house of Givenchy, with its stripped-back modernity, it naturally felt the right direction to go in,” Burton tells Vogue. The dress was constructed in white French Lyon lace and silk tulle, and belted with a black grosgrain bow. While it nods to Givenchy’s early days, Burton brought the dress into the modern era with a corseted bodice, an updated take on a 1950s bra, and a Watteau-train cape. “It felt like kismet. It was another first: inspired by a lace dress from Hubert de Givenchy’s first collection,” Fanning says. She added a Cartier choker from 1958 and a watch to go with her vintage-inspired dress.
Fanning, who starred in the Best Picture nominee A Complete Unknown, is a longtime friend of the designer. She turned to Burton (who was then the creative director at Alexander McQueen) to dress her for the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, wearing an intricate crystal-encrusted ball gown from her fall 2023 collection. And for Burton’s final show at the helm of McQueen, Fanning sat front row in one of her earliest looks, the tortoiseshell-corseted Bee dress from spring 2013. “I love the bold choices Elle makes, her creativity, her talent,” Burton says. “I’m thrilled to work with her for the Academy Awards on my first couture dresses for Givenchy.”
For the Vanity Fair after-party, the actor changed into another custom Givenchy look. The black Chantilly lace dress bore many similarities to Fanning’s Oscars dress from the cape detail to the ’50s-inspired bust and grosgrain belt. But with its strapless silhouette, ankle length, black sequin embellishment, and pop of red, it was far more fitting to dance the night away. She swapped her vintage jewels for a modern Cartier High Jewelry necklace and Coussin de Cartier ring.
Between Elle Fanning’s archive-inspired dress for the 2025 Oscars and an upcoming show in Paris, Sarah Burton’s Givenchy is off to a hot start.
See every look from the 2025 Oscars Red Carpet:
