Excerpt courtesy of WWD

After eight years at the creative helm of the French house, Riccardo Tisci proved that his signature cocktail of tough and tender—while seemingly at odds with Givenchy’s genteel image—is a combustible combination. “You never know what to expect from me,” the Italian designer relates in his mile-a-minute parlance over the phone from Brazil, where he is vacationing for a few weeks after his triumphant show. “Today I could be very romantic, and the next season I could be very sexual.”

Chalk it up to his youth and his full-throttle approach to life and to work. At 38, Tisci has brought Givenchy back to the top of the Paris fashion agenda. His shows are pulse-pounding, theatrical events, rarely failing to deliver a strong jolt of fashion.

Told he is becoming something of the showman, the designer balked at the descriptor, insisting the term is more appropriate for the likes of the late Lee Alexander McQueen. “I don’t feel like a showman. I feel like an emotional man,” he says, explaining that his fall collection was largely autobiographical, born of twin acts of misfortune.