Designer grovels in Markle dress debacle

WHO would dare utter a word of criticism against the new Duchess of Sussex?

Top fashion designer Emilia Wickstead has felt the need to issue a grovelling apology after mentioning to me at a party last week that Meghan Markle’s wedding dress was ‘identical’ to one she had created.

Comparing the £200,000 Givenchy gown designed by Clare Waight Keller (far right) to her own £7,000 off-the-shoulder Helene dress (near right), the 34-year-old favourite of the Duchess of Cambridge told me: ‘Her dress is identical to one of our dresses. Apparently a lot of commentators were saying: “It’s an Emilia Wickstead dress.”’

Now, after facing extraordinary online criticism, she has backtracked. In a statement posted on her Instagram page on Sunday, she cooed: ‘Her Royal Highness, the Duchess of Sussex looked absolutely beautiful on her wedding day and I have the utmost admiration and respect for her.

‘I do not think that her wedding dress was a copy of any of our designs. I have the greatest respect for Clare Waight Keller and the House of Givenchy — a huge source of inspiration to me.’

It is not the first time she has found herself entangled in a PR debacle. Two years ago, having designed a sumptuous dress for the marriage of the Duke of Wellington’s daughter, Charlotte Wellesley, to billionaire financier Alejandro Santo Domingo, Wickstead arrived at the nuptials wearing a floor-length ivory frock with her trademark fold-down, off-the-shoulder neckline, which, several observers noted, was uncannily similar to the bridal gown.