Audrey Hepburn movie costume in film Breakfast at Tiffany's(1961), the complete wardrobe of Holly Golightly

Breakfast at Tiffany's is a 1961 American romantic comedy film directed by Blake Edwards, written by George Axelrod, adapted from Truman Capote's 1958 novella of the same name, and starring Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly, a naïve, eccentric café society girl who falls in love with a struggling writer. It was theatrically released by Paramount Pictures on October 5, 1961, to critical and commercial success.

The author of the novella Breakfast at Tiffany's, Truman Capote, who sold the film rights of it to Paramount Studios, wanted Marilyn Monroe to play Holly Golightly, whom he had described perfectly in the book. He was cited as saying"Marilyn was always my first choice to play the girl, Holly Golightly."

But when Lee Strasberg, Marilyn Monroe's acting coach and mentor advised Marilyn Monroe that playing a "lady of the evening" would be bad for her image, she turned it down, as well as a few other actresses.

At the beginning of the movie, when we see Audrey Hepburn walking out of a yellow taxi in a black floor length dress with moon like cutout on the back, gliding toward the Tiffany's, with the melancholic music of Moon River playing in the ground, matching her footsteps, we thank Marilyn Monroe and all other actresses for refusing to play Holly Golightly. As the movie progress, we can not help thinking: Only Audrey Hepburn can make an evening girl look like a normal girl.

Breakfast at Tiffany's opening scene with Henry Mancini's music Moon River

Since the film Sabrina(1954), French couturier Hubert de Givenchy became Audrey's default costume designer for her films. Breakfast at Tiffany's is no exception. In this film, Givenchy has created for Audrey Hepburn's Holly Golightly a wardrobe(with the exception of only two outfits designed by Edith Head) that shows the identity of an evening girl who lives on men, yet tells the story of a woman with class and taste. The black floor length dress he designed for Audrey for the opening scene of the movie, would become the most iconic outfit in film history.