Are couture’s coolest couple set to dress Meghan on big day?
WHICH couturier has been picked to create Meghan Markle’s wedding dress is the biggest question in the fashion world. And now a royal insider may have revealed the answer.
‘Meghan has chosen Ralph & Russo,’ the source claims.
If the well-placed informant is correct, the decision by Prince Harry’s bride to select a British brand would provide a welcome boost for this country’s fashion industry.
The American former actress’s decision would also prove lucrative for bookies who stopped taking bets on Alexander McQueen last month after being ‘inundated’ with punts on the fashion house, which created Kate Middleton’s satin and lace bridal gown in 2011.
Based in a seven- storey Mayfair salon overlooking the gardens of Buckingham Palace, Ralph & Russo was the first British fashion house to be invited to the Paris couture shows in a century.
With prices starting at £30,000 and customers admitted by appointment only, it could provide the expected combination of royal elegance and Hollywood glamour.
It specialises in elaborate couture dresses studded with crystals, feathers, iridescent metallic features and floorsweeping trains.
Adored by A-list Americans such as Beyonce and Gwyneth Paltrow, Ralph & Russo made the skirt suit that Angelina Jolie wore to accept her honorary damehood from the Queen in 2014.
Meghan, 36, has already demonstrated her fondness for the duo’s hand-made creations by wearing a daring transparent gown in her official engagement photos.
Priced at a staggering £55,980, the outfit comprised a silk organza skirt, hand appliqued with silk tulle ruffles, and a sheer bodice decorated with intricate gold feather thread-work and beads.
Known as couture’s coolest couple, Tamara Ralph and Michael Russo were both born in Australia but founded their business with only a sewing machine and an ironing board in London in 2007. Tamara, who is the same age as Meghan, is the daughter and granddaughter of Sydney couturiers. She met Michael, then a financial consultant in London, on her first day on holiday in the capital in 2003.
They fell in love and began a long- distance relationship when she returned to Australia. After a year or so, Michael, now 38, phoned to say he’d bought her a flight to London, adding: ‘It’s one-way — you leave next week.’
‘So, the next week I packed up and moved,’ says Tamara.
‘Then I said: “OK, I’m here, what will I do?” ’ Michael told her: ‘ I’ve thought about that. And I’ve bought you a sewing machine.’
Said to be growing by 400 per cent a year, the brand was given a nine-figure valuation when Phones4U billionaire John Caudwell bought 7 per cent of it in 2014.
One thing certain is that the gown Meghan wears at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, will be infinitely more intricate — and expensive — than her wedding dress when she married her first husband, American film producer Trevor Engelson, in 2011.
Then, she opted for a white bohemian- style, strapless floor- length gown with a notch neckline. It was, however, in keeping with the laidback feel of the ceremony, held on a beach in Jamaica.
A Ralph & Russo spokesman tells me: ‘We will be politely declining to comment on this topic.’ And Kensington Palace officials were similarly discreet.