At 3 Avenue George V, the historic Paris home of Givenchy, Sarah Burton presented her first publicly dedicated menswear collection for the house. Though Burton has been overseeing menswear since being named creative director in September 2024, this marks her first official presentation of the line, and it was well worth the wait.

For this collection, Burton wanted a clean slate. “Givenchy menswear has been so many different things to so many different people,” she said at the presentation. From Ozwald Boateng’s disruptively decorative Savile Row eye to Riccardo Tisci’s streetwear explosion to Clare Waight Keller’s return to tailoring and Matthew M. Williams’ industrially accented take on it, the category has shifted so many times it resists any single definition. Brought with her from Alexander McQueen is menswear designer Harley Hughes, the two started from the ground up, with a tailoring approach that deconstructs all classic techniques. As Givenchy’s eighth designer and only its second female couturier, she sees this complexity as her opening.

The collection is structured as a triptych: three rooms, each dedicated to a different facet of the wardrobe, presented in dialogue with sculptures by British artist Rachel Whiteread, whose practice takes the form of casts of domestic interiors and objects. Her first major work, Closet, was cast from the interior of a wardrobe and her best-known public installation, House, solidified the interior volume of an entire Victorian home. For Givenchy, Burton recommissioned molds of wardrobe interiors specifically for the presentation, making the collaboration a natural extension of the collection’s premise.

The first room, tailoring, is where Burton’s authority is most thrilling to witness. “I always begin with the silhouette, and that is determined by the shoulders,” she said. Suits are cut open, lapels removed and repositioned, and waists nipped. Double-breasted jackets and wide-leg trousers sit alongside curve-seamed denim and leather jeans, workwear overalls styled with a white leather shirt, and a Crombie coat in 2026, truly defining what it means to give a modern twist on a classic style.

The second room showcases the heirloom pieces, built to last and meant to be passed down: embroidered coats inspired by Old Masters paintings, richly worked MA-1 bombers, jacquard sweaters with tapestry-like floral motifs, and satin coats in pale yellow and flower-festooned gold mix fun with timelessness.

The third room is pure joy: leather tracksuits in every vivid color imaginable, paired with matching skate sneakers, soft bright separates that are as precise as anything in the tailoring room. “I took what I felt was the most ordinary object, which is a tracksuit, and made them into something very opposite, with leather, so they felt sort of precious,” Burton explained.

Personal, multigenerational, and fun: this collection announced exactly what Burton is building at Givenchy, and she delivered on every bit of it.