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    1. Style

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

    Penny Goldstone's avatar
    By Penny Goldstone
    Published 29 May 2019 In News

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    (Image credit: REX/Shutterstock)
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    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.

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    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.

    Marie Claire Newsletter

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    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
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    Contributing Fashion Editor

    Penny Goldstone is the Contributing Fashion Editor at Marie Claire UK. She writes about catwalk trends and the latest high street and Instagram sartorial must-haves. She also helms the Women Who Win franchise.

    She has worked in fashion for over 10 years, contributing to publications such as Cosmopolitan, Red, Good Housekeeping, and Stylist.

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