Clare Waight Keller shares details on her friendship with Meghan Markle
Clare Waight Keller, the 48-year-old artistic director of Givenchy, was only a year into her job at the French fashion house when she was tasked with possibly the most important project of her life: designing the wedding dress Meghan Markle would wear to marry Prince Harry.
On May 19, 2018, Meghan walked down the aisle in what is sure to be one of the most famous dresses of all time, thanks in part to the 1.9 billion people that tuned in to watch the royal wedding. But what Keller didn't expect would be just how close she would become with the now Duchess of Sussex.
In an interview with Grazia, Keller shares how her friendship with the 37-year-old royal developed over the course of designing Meghan's gown in secret.
"Because it felt so small and intimate up until that point, no one else was involved, it really was just the two of us for so long, I simply didn’t grasp the scale of it. Then on the day, driving through streets and streets lined with people waving, that overwhelming realisation that actually, this is going to be enormous..."
The designer went on to express: "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 two women continue to support each other through more recent milestones.
For Meghan's first solo engagement as a royal, she wore Givenchy, and then, a few months later, the duchess surprised Keller by presenting her with the British Designer of the Year Award at the Royal Albert Hall in London, where they embraced in a tight hug on stage.
Of the sweet moment, Keller said, "I suppose it showed a lot of people how deep our friendship had got."
The next step in their friendship? Meeting Baby Sussex, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, which apparently is on the horizon: "I haven’t met him yet, but I’m sure soon."
See another Meghan x Givenchy moment below and read the entire interview with Clare Waight Keller here.
