This is what it was like to work with Meghan Markle on her wedding dress

(Image credit: REX/Shutterstock)

Meghan Markle's Givenchy wedding dress was the stuff of dreams, and was the result of months of collaboration between the Duchess and Clare Waight Keller.

The British designer has opened up before about how she underestimated how popular the dress would be, and she's now revealed more about the process, in an interview with Grazia.

She revealed that the dress was far more symbolic than appears, as Meghan wanted to represent change with it.

Clare said, 'We talked about the ceremony, the implications of her coming into the family and what her role was going to be in the future, and what she wanted to represent, what emotions she wanted to portray, how she wanted to carve out a new idea of a way to dress for a royal, and also the magnitude of it. She was so excited about the whole thing.'

'It’s all those little things when you’re working with such purity, everything matters – the bateau neck and where it cut on her bone, the hem at the front was 2cm shorter so you could see the point of her shoe, so she looked like she was floating,' she added.

LONDON, ENGLAND - DECEMBER 10: Meghan, Duchess of Sussex presents the award for British Designer of the Year Womenswear Award to Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy during The Fashion Awards 2018 In Partnership With Swarovski at Royal Albert Hall on December 10, 2018 in London, England. (Photo by Joe Maher/BFC/Getty Images)

The result was breathtakingly simple and elegant, and a rather clever nod to Givenchy's early days.

As a result, Clare and Meghan have become close friends. 'I think the magic of that being so intimate and so personal for so long felt incredibly special because it evolved from a designer and client relationship very quickly into a friendship, in that we’ve got such a comfort level with one another and shared so many special moments. I suppose we have a sort of unbreakable bond in that sense, when you’ve experienced something very few people have together, so it goes deep,' the designer revealed.

In fact, when Clare won her British Designer of the Year award at the Fashion Awards, Meghan presented her with the prize, even though she didn't need to and it had never been done by a Royal before.

That meant more to the designer than the award itself as 'it just shows her level of thought and emotion about people, how much she values people and feels for them'.

Penny Goldstone

Penny Goldstone is the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire, covering everything from catwalk trends to royal fashion and the latest high street and Instagram must-haves.

Penny grew up in France and studied languages and law at the Sorbonne Nouvelle University in Paris before moving to the UK for her MA in multimedia journalism at Bournemouth University. She moved to the UK permanently and has never looked back (though she does go back regularly to stock up on cheese and wine).

Although she's always loved fashion - she used to create scrapbooks of her favourite trends and looks, including Sienna Miller and Kate Moss' boho phase - her first job was at MoneySavingExpert.com, sourcing the best deals for everything from restaurants to designer sales.

However she quit after two years to follow her true passion, fashion journalism, and after many years of internships and freelance stints at magazines including Red, Cosmopolitan, Stylist and Good Housekeeping, landed her dream job as the Digital Fashion Editor at Marie Claire UK.

Her favourite part of the job is discovering new brands and meeting designers, and travelling the world to attend events and fashion shows. Seeing her first Chanel runway IRL at Paris Fashion Week was a true pinch-me moment.