Holly Golightly, Hypebeast

There’s a lot to see at fashion week. Blink (or scroll too fast) and you’ll miss the details: feathered bags, futuristic sunglasses, fork jewelry. All month long, we’ll spotlight the things we saw that surprised or delighted us.

PARIS — Backstage before the Givenchy show on Sunday night, the designer Matthew Williams scrolled through his phone to show his visual references for his fall collection. It was only the second time he was presenting a Givenchy collection on a runway before a live audience since being appointed its creative director in 2020.

One of the images was of Audrey Hepburn wearing a black evening gown and pearl choker in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” — possibly one of the most mood-boarded looks of all time.

In some ways, it wasn’t surprising that Mr. Williams was inspired by the aesthetic of the 1961 film; other than, well, Tiffany & Company, the brand most associated with the film is Givenchy, whose founder, Hubert de Givenchy, designed the satin dress that turned Ms. Hepburn’s Holly Golightly into an icon.

But Mr. Williams’s reference was still kind of a shocker. Backstage before his other runway show, in October, the streetwear designer seemed more interested in presenting his personal point of view (“skate rat turned club kid turned D.J. turned designer,” as The Times called him in 2017) rather than trawl through the house archives for material.

Yet here he was, in 2022, putting pearls on the necks of about a dozen models. Granted, some of the necklaces were styled to peek out of distressed cropped hoodies. And the pearls weren’t dainty drops knotted into elegant strands, but chunky orbs that sprouted tiny crystallized spores. A tiny Givenchy logo was printed on some lone pearls, because even they couldn’t escape luxury logomania. The necklaces also came in black matte, for some added edge.

The overall effect was cool and tough, heightened by the models’ faux face piercings and, occasionally, bleached eyebrows. As the brand noted in a news release about the collection, “nothing is overly precious” — not even the memory of Holly Golightly.