Prince Harry and Meghan Markle exchanged vows in May 2018, with Anna Wintour providing a succinct three-word review of the actress’s $342,000 wedding dress.
The 43-year-old Duchess donned an exquisite gown designed by Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy. In a departure from Royal tradition, the mother-of-two chose a sleek style over the typical detailed lace preferred by other Royal brides. Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour described the dress as ‘chic, grown-up and sophisticated’ at the time.
As one of the most influential figures in fashion, Anna’s endorsement carries significant weight, making her praise of Meghan’s dress a likely compliment to the bride. “It was sophisticated, it was chic, it was grown-up,” she gushed about Meghan’s wedding dress.
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She further noted: “It was an English designer, albeit one who worked for a French house, which in a way was a message to the world: ‘Yes, I’m from somewhere else, but I belong’. I thought she looked fantastic.”
Meanwhile, designer Clare expressed that it was “just a pleasure” to create the dress, revealing that she and Meghan developed a “personal” friendship during the design process. Speaking at the 2023 Bazaar At Work Summit in London, she shared: “It was just a pleasure to create in this very, very private way.”
She added: “It was just the two of us for so long, and it became this very personal girlfriend relationship.”
Clare, speaking from Kensington Palace, shared her experience of working on a piece of history: “It was an extraordinary moment. It was an incredible thing to be part of such an historic moment and, in fact, to have the opportunity to work with her.”
She revealed the collaborative effort with Meghan to infuse the wedding dress with personal touches, including a sweet hidden detail commemorating the couple’s first date. Clare disclosed: “We basically sewed it into the hem of the wedding dress, so she was the only one that knew that it was there. It was a little blue gingham check. It was the perfect personal memento that was secretly hidden inside the dress.”
Meghan herself had previously mentioned this special addition in the HBO documentary Queen of the World, saying: “Somewhere in here there’s a piece of blue fabric that’s stitched inside it was my something blue. It’s fabric from the dress that I wore on our first date.”