Pierre Balmain created Audrey Hepburn’s short wedding dress for her 1954 marriage to Mel Ferrer.
Hepburn wore a white, tea-length dress with a fitted bodice, full skirt, short sleeves, and a high neckline. The compact silhouette differed from the floor-length gowns commonly associated with formal mid-century weddings and suited Hepburn’s youthful, gamine style.
The ceremony took place at Burgenstock in Switzerland. Hepburn’s later fashion partnership with Hubert de Givenchy is so famous that many people incorrectly credit Givenchy with this wedding dress.
Givenchy designed numerous celebrated costumes and clothes for Hepburn, but Balmain designed the dress for her first wedding. Hepburn married Italian psychiatrist Andrea Dotti in 1969 in a different short dress by Hubert de Givenchy.