Fever pitch: who will Meghan wear to the chapel?
Forget AM and PM, BC and AD even. The only time measures that anyone is really worried about right now are BMD and AMD. That’s Before Meghan’s Dress and After Meghan’s Dress, says Bethan Holt
This BMD era in which we live is fraught with uncertainty and rife with hearsay. Even people who profess to find the royals a bit tiresome or assume themselves to be too cool to care can be drawn into impassioned conversations examining the evidence in minute detail and offering their humble opinions.
The AMD era will begin at sometime around 11.55 on Saturday, when Ms Markle arrives at St George’s chapel. The moment that she steps out of the car, Kensington Palace will finally reveal what may be the best or worst kept secret of the year (more of that later). At this point, we can swap our conjecture for actual judgment and no doubt hours will be whiled away analysing our love/hate/ shock/boredom at our new American princess’s frock of choice.
This much we already know: we cannot, alas, say that Meghan’s will be “the dress of the decade”, given that Kate and William were married in 2011. By dint of the-now Duchess of Cambridge being a future queen who took a punt on a design house (Alexander Mcqueen) which had hitherto been best known for such boundary-pushing statements as a collection called Highland Rape, in recognition of the ethnic cleansing of Scotland by the English, I think we can agree that, despite the current feverish hype, Meghan will be making do with “dress of the year”. Nevertheless, the question of whether she will go more Wallis Simpson (sensuous, figure-hugging and fashion-aware) or
Grace Kelly (classic, elegant and aisle-filling) remains. Also, Meghan is a divorcee, though when your first was on a beach and your second is in a magnificent chapel, perhaps the old rules of going more subtle second time around no longer apply.
In recent weeks, Ralph & Russo has emerged as the bookies’ favourite to be creating The Dress. In many ways, they are an entirely logical and appropriate choice. R&R is the only British fashion house to have been approved to show at Paris Couture fashion week by the Chambre Syndicale de la Haute Couture, the worldleading arbiter of these things. Tamara Ralph and her business and life partner Michael Russo are London-based but originally from Australia
(a nice Commonwealth- friendly touch) and came seemingly from nowhere when they started in 2010 to now having the biggest couture business in the world – they employ 250 in their London atelier alone and are particularly beloved of the Middle Eastern and American super rich; although they won’t give exact client number counts, their warehouse contains 30,000 customer mannequins. One tabloid is touting that they are dead certs, having created a £100,000 show-stopper for Harry’s bride.
But in fashion circles, there is some snobbery towards R&R. Their general aesthetic is a bit too flashy (“regional bar mitzvah” was one particularly acerbic observation) for the sleekloving crowd who would prefer their fashion muses to come more in the mould of Carolyn Bessette-kennedy than a Disney Princess and had been hopeful that Meghan, with her penchant for navy, cashmere jumpers and wide-legged trousers, might be an antidote to Kate’s prim and properness.
The finale bridal gown at Ralph & Russo’s most recent couture show was a confection that included 100,000 microbeads and had a skirt about four times the width of its model. And yet, they can pare it back when the occasion calls for it – see Dame Natalie Massenet in a neat red skirt suit or Gwyneth Paltrow in a oneshouldered soft pink column gown at the 2015 Oscars. Some say that the fact Meghan wore a £56,000 Ralph & Russo dress for her engagement shoot precludes them from the big commission, but Lady Diana wore the Emanuels several times before her wedding day, so who knows?
When the couple first announced their engagement, it was Canadian-turkish designer Erdem Moralıoğlu who immediately came to mind as the perfect man for the job. Meghan had previously referenced him as “a designer I’ve been wearing for years” in an interview with Vanity Fair and grainy paparazzi pictures revealed that she’d worn his “Ava” dress to a wedding with Harry in Jamaica. Erdem himself stoked the fire when he cited Adele Astaire, an American showgirl who married into the British aristocracy, as the inspiration for his autumn/winter 2018 collection. But some wonder whether the fact that Erdem already outfits the Duchess of Cambridge, Princess Eugenie and the Countess of Wessex may have been too much precedent for Meghan, who is clearly keen to blaze her own trail. His ways with flounce and embellishment which looks at once modern and nostalgic would, however, make him a wonderful choice whether for the day or the evening.
And now we come to the great Burberry mystery. Whispers have abounded that the powerhouse of British fashion could be creating Meghan’s dress, which would, of course, be good and right. But it is currently in flux, having said farewell to its chief creative officer of 17 years, Christopher Bailey. He’s still consulting for the brand but new designer Riccardo Tisci is now in the building and released a taster of his new vision this weekend. So if it is Burberry, who would actually have designed the dress? The politics are a nightmare. Could Bailey have taken the commission as his debut solo outing?
The label isn’t known for its red carpet creations – they’ve made politely sparkly pieces for Emma Watson, Sienna Miller and Lily James but it would be intriguing to see a Burberry wedding dress, perhaps they’d even do something a bit trench-y, given Meghan’s love of the style.
Roland Mouret and Stella Mccartney are two other names that would certainly be worth a punt – and would be bound to deliver if Markle’s brief was the kind of refined understatement she’s been channelling since she and Harry got engaged (aside from that Ralph & Russo gown). Markle and Mouret – most famous as the creator of the figure-hugging Galaxy dress beloved of everyone from Victoria Beckham to Carol Vorderman – go way back to her Suits days when they were pictured hugging like old friends at fashion dinners. “Mmmmm, I don’t want to say. No comment. It’s… there is no comment on that. She’s a friend. And that’s… I can’t say,” has been Mouret’s only murmuring on the matter, but one of the London Fashion Week star’s tailored designs would feel like a refreshing take on the sometimes staid idea of what a royal
wedding dress could look like.
Meghan has already worn a custom-made caped navy dress by Stella Mccartney at the Queen’s birthday concert and it looked sublime. The two women’s passion for environmental consciousness tallies nicely, too. But could Mccartney be too starry a name for Meghan to give this profile-boosting job to, even if she intends to wear lots of her designs post-wedding? That’s a conundrum which seems to have discounted Beckham from the running, although the two women are said to have struck up a friendship and Meghan has worn a Victoria Beckham jumper a couple of times.
So far, we have assumed that Markle will do the patriotic thing and wear British on her wedding day but if she were feeling particularly brave and keen to assert her independence then she might have opted for an American designer in homage to her homeland. When else will a US name have the chance to make a royal wedding dress, after all? And Grace Kelly’s was created for her by Helen Rose, an American costumier at MGM Studios. Now it would be
completely far-fetched to think of the Suits wardrobe department making Meghan’s dress but Oscar de la Renta or Carolina Herrera would no doubt do something dreamy. Or could Violet von Westenholz, the Ralph Lauren PR who introduced Harry and Meghan, have orchestrated a coup for her employers?
There’s a plethora of multicultural modern American options. She has worn outfits by Jason Wu, a Taiwanese-canadian based in New York who dressed Michelle Obama for both of the inauguration balls she attended as first lady, and Joseph Altuzarra, a Chinese-french-american who specialises in waist-cinching jackets and power pencil skirts.
In my fashion editor fantasy- butunlikely scenario, it would be divine to see Meghan entrust one of London Fashion Week’s new establishment names. Aside from Erdem at the tamer end of the spectrum is Emilia Wickstead, who created a beautiful black skirt suit for Meghan to wear to the Anzac Day service. The New Zealand designer has redefined ladylike and made the ultimate grand but modern wedding gown for Lady Charlotte Wellesley when she married Alejandro Santo Domingo in 2016. Roksanda Ilincic would deliver sharp, interesting lines the likes of which St George’s would never have seen before or Christopher Kane might tempt Meghan into something daring – he did dress Phoebe Waller-bridge in a More Sex Please dress for last week’s Catholic-themed Met Gala, after all.
See, these BMD times are rather complex.