Like most of the sane universe (assuming such a thing still exists with Brexit in the UK, Trump fever in the US and some of the recent couture shows in Paris) I had a major beef with the painful Vanity Fair profile of Margot Robbie. It had nothing to do with the daft comments about Australia being 50 years behind the US – if that means that we haven’t become overrun with gun-toting mad types and have to listen to Kanye West’s ramblings, I don’t give a balsamic fig.


My issue was with writer Rich Cohen’s quotes from movie producer Jerry Weintraub.  “When I think of Margot Robbie, a single word comes to mind,” Jerry said. “Audrey Hepburn.” Now don’t get me wrong, I have great respect for the world’s greatest Margot since Kidder, and love how she wiped the floor with Leonardo Di Caprio in The Wolf of Wall Street. But let’s all calm down because Audrey Hepburn was a style icon from the moment she appeared on camera in Roman Holiday while Robbie’s red carpet reign is just beginning. 

re Screen Shot 20160711 at 122602 PM copy
Audrey Hepburn, shot by Bud Fraker in 1953, at around the same age Robbie is now
Credit: Instagram @soaudreyhepburn

re soaudreyhepburnAudrey Hepburn photographed for hair test for the film Breakfast at Tiffanys 1960 copy
Like Robbie, Hepburn could even make a bathrobe look good, as per this hair test shot during filming of Breakfast at Tiffany’s
Credit: Instagram @soaudreyhepburn

Recovering Neighbours’ starlet Robbie has made some great red carpet choices (particularly that unexpected embellished Gucci dress with fur-trimmed sleeves that she wore to the premiere of The Legend of Tarzan and the Tom Ford gold gown that got an Oscars outing this year) but she’s a long way from defining the style of a generation.

rezie
Robbie in Gucci AW16 at The Legend of Tarzan premiere
Credit: Instagram @_margotrobbie_

When Audrey Hepburn arrived on the scene women of taste shifted their aesthetic aspirations from busty blondes such as Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, who could barely contain their hourglass figures in flamboyant look-at-me outfits that strained at the stitches. With her balletic grace, lean frame and gamine appearance Hepburn was an instant game-changer. Now Robbie may have some influence in the future but a blonde who wears white bikinis on magazine covers is not heralding the arrival of the next revolution in fashion.

re vanityfairSee more photos from MargotRobbies beachy patrickdemarchelierhelmed cover shoot at the link in our bio copy
Photographed for THAT Vanity Fair article by Patrick Demarchelier
Credit: Instagram @patrickdemarchelier for @vanityfair 

Hepburn’s impact as a fashion leader was felt with full force because of her ongoing collaboration with Givenchy. I’m not talking about the bedazzled, blinged-out Beyonce version of the brand currently championed by Riccardo Tisci. The label’s founder Hubert de Givenchy created Hepburn’s exquisite wardrobe for the movie Sabrina as well as for her role as a budding supermodel Funny Face. Naturally, Hepburn also wore Givenchy off-screen; she wasn’t a trackies kind of woman.

re timelessaudreyhepburnAudrey and Mel photographed  probably by Inge Morathin Mexico1959My scan from Japanese Spur mag1993 issue AudreyHepburn MelFerrer copy
Off duty Hepburn with her husband Mel Ferrer photographed in Mexico by Inge Morath in 1959. Not a tracksuit in sight
Credit: Instagram @timelessaudreyhepburn

We’re yet to see Robbie send serious shivers down our spines with her on-screen wardrobe, although her Joker-lite get-up for the upcoming Suicide Squad has some emo appeal. High fashion might not score an Oscar nod but it will put Robbie in Hepburn’s orbit.

re Screen Shot 20160711 at 125509 PM copy
Robbie as blonde Harley Quinn in Suicide Squad
Credit: Instagram @margotrobbie

Givenchy, the original, and Hepburn also teamed up for the first celebrity fragrance L’Interdit in 1957, decades before Britney Spear’s record-breaking yet suspicious smelling Curious. Now Robbie is smelling sweeter as the face of Deep Euphoria for Calvin Klein but still has work to do getting up our nostrils.

re Screen Shot 20160711 at 125246 PM copy
Off-duty Robbie with her boyfriend Tom Ackerley’s niece in London earlier this year
Credit: Instagram @margotrobbie

So while Cohen has plenty of words to eat, Weintraub, who produced Tarzan and that version of The Karate Kid with Jaden Smith only has one word to eat. “When I think of Margot Robbie, a single word comes to mind,” Jerry said. “Audrey Hepburn.” Well actually, Jerry it’s two words and they’re still both wrong.

Main image: Instagram @vanityfair