MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT

Wedding dress designer Kate Halfpenny

Fashion stylist to the stars, Kate halfpenny, 42, runs her own wedding dress company, halfpenny london. she lives in the capital with her husband, James lee Duffy, 41, a creative director, and son, sylvester, two.

MY CHILDHOOD in Eighties Derbyshire wasn’t exactly glamorous. Mum was a knitwear designer and my grandmother a machinist at a local denim factory, and I grew up wearing mohair jumpers in Dennis the Menace red and black stripes.

Sometimes they got fashion magazines, which felt exotic. I’d cut up photos to mix and match outfits.

The moment that inspired me came early on. It was July 1981, and I was gathered around a boxy TV set to watch Prince Charles and Lady Diana’s wedding. I was six, but I remember the hairs standing up on my neck when I saw Diana in her Elizabeth Emanuel gown.

It was such a different world to anything I’d known in dear old Ripley. Outside there was a street party, but all I wanted was to draw that silhouette with its nipped- in waist and giant skirt. I didn’t have access to big galleries and fashion exhibitions in London. But at art school in Chesterfield and university in Huddersfield, my focus was on evening gowns, specifically bridal wear.

Later I set up as a freelance stylist in London. I got lucky working with Kate Moss on the early Rimmel London campaigns, and became friends with actress Emilia Fox, whose wedding dress I designed in 2005. But it wasn’t until I visited the offices of Vogue later that year that I truly felt I’d made it.

I’d grown up dreaming of appearing in Vogue, and there I was, chatting to its editor. Several years later Alexandra Shulman [Vogue’s former editor] asked me to design her hat for Kate and William’s wedding. I was as excited as I was 30 years before, but now I wasn’t standing outside the circle — I was inside.