When Prince William and Kate Middleton got engaged in 2010, rumors buzzed about which designer would get one of the biggest wedding dress commissions of all time. But instead of a member of the Royal Family or a stylist, the future Queen was directed to a different source for advice: the then-editor–in-chief of British Vogue.
"When Catherine and William got engaged, somebody from her office got in touch with me and said she'd love to have a conversation about potential wedding designers," Alexandra Shulman revealed in her new book, Black Coffee and Red Lipstick: Notes on Living.
The former editor-in-chief added that she "was absolutely thrilled to bits” about being a fashion mentor for Kate’s wedding, but wasn’t allowed to reveal her role in the big day at the time.
"I didn't know how designer-literate she was, because at this point she wasn't wearing McQueen or Erdem," she said. "Try as I might, I couldn't find a single picture of a British designer who had a lovely conventional white dress.”
After speaking with Kate, Shulman said the future princess “asked me who I thought would be best." However, the decision involved quite a lot of diplomacy, and Shulman revealed that there actually “wasn’t a surefire person” for the job.
"I thought Vivienne Westwood would be great, but I thought Vivienne's personality might be hard to marry with the formality of dealing with the royal household,” she admitted.
Shulman said other options were turned down because they were so strongly associated with Princess Diana. "There were the whole tranche of designers who would have been the traditional choices, like Bruce Oldfield or Catherine Walker, but I knew they would be associated with her late mother-in-law, so that probably wasn't going to work," she shared.
Eventually, Shulman decided Sarah Burton, who was the creative director for Alexander McQueen at the time, was the best choice "because she was a woman, and she's got a very strong, but a very gentle personality." After delivering her suggestion, Shulman said "Catherine just nodded and said, 'Thank you'"—and the rest was history.