The Duchess of Sussex joined The Queen for their first ever engagement together. The pair travelled on the royal train to Cheshire. Meghan looked very sophisticated in a custom Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy caplet dress. More on the duo’s day on our sister site, The Crown Chronicles.
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The Duchess wore a Givenchy vintage style ivory fitted pencil dress with square shoulder caplet. The dress is not available to purchase through Givenchy and doesn’t appear that it will be so as the outfit has been especially made for Meghan. The midi-length dress showcases impeccable tailored panels across the dress and caplet. When looking closely, you will notice the curved tailoring details across the shoulders and vertical seams down the centre of the round high neck caplet. The strong square shoulders create quite a presence with this outfit and could almost appear to contain shoulder pads to get this striking look. The dress is silk lined, though we are not sure of the fabric used in the dress as it appeared to become a little creased when from sitting. The clean lines of this dress create an elegant sophistication.
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When looking through Givenchy’s collections, it is hard to pinpoint an exact or close match to this dress. It appears that Meghan is quite instep with The Duchess of Cambridge in taking several pieces from one designer and extrapolating them into a new garment. We show several pieces from the Givenchy Spring/Summer 2018 Collection that feature similar garment construction elements.
When delving much further back into Givenchy’s fashion history, it seems the new Artistic Director Waight Keller has also been doing her fair share of research from Herbert de Givenchy and taking inspiration from vintage pieces to create her latest collection. You will see similar designs and construction from the 1930, 1950’s and 1960’s Givenchy pieces. With clean lines, midi length dresses, seamed and panelled detailing, capes and caplets. It is only natural that Claire would want to be true to a fashion houses originally designer, especially in her first collection. Not only does it pay homage to Herbert but it shows that Clare has an understanding of Givenchy’s past and can be whilst still adding her own spin to the collection. Below we show some images of where the current similar design’s to Meghan’s dress may have been inspired by.
Meghan seems to have already inherited a proclivity to procure bespoke couture pieces from her wedding dress designer as The Duchess of Cambridge has done on countless times with Sarah Burton and Alexander McQueen. However, Kate did not start doing this so soon after her marriage to Prince William. We really only saw this start to first happen on foreign tours when Catherine wore a bespoke lavender McQueen gown to the BAFTA engagement in Canada. The Alexander McQueen coat she wore to her first Trooping the Colour was a ready-to-wear piece. She has increased the presence of her bespoke McQueen ensembles rapidly over the years. Kate chose an LK Bennett teal pencil suit for her first outing with Queen Elizabeth.
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Meghan wore Sarah Flint ‘Perfect Pumps’ 100 retailing for £421. These sharp pointed toe black leather court heels feature Sarah Flint’s distinguishable ‘V’ across the toe. The pumps have 100mm high stiletto heel and are made from 100% calf leather on the outer and the lined interior. Meghan has been a fan of Sarah Flint shoes since before she married Prince Harry and has many pairs of shoes from the designer – in fact, we saw these . The Duchess has added another staple pair of court heels to her royal shoe collection that we are sure to see on numerous engagements in the future. Purchase these pumps here. You can purchase an affordable replicate here.
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Meghan carried a Givenchy ‘Leather Cross Body bag’, retailing for £947. The bag is made from grained black leather with a detachable gold chain cross body strap that can be worn over the shoulder or carried a clutch. The bag has two interior pockets, brushed gold hardware with a Givenchy gold name plate and gold embossed logo on near the bottom of the bag. The bag is created from goatskin with a suede interior. It is available for pre-season order. You can purchase this bag here.
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Meghan wore a Givenchy ‘Black 2G Buckle’ belt, retailing for £310. The black leather belt has a bold gold hardware mirrored ‘G’ buckle (The letter G’s are attached together to form the buckle) The belt is made from grained calfskin, with tonal stitching and measures 1.25 inches in width. The addition of this belt was a nice idea from Meghan and helped to cinch in the waistline and break up a top heavy dress. You can purchase this belt here, here and here.
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The Duchess accessorised with diamond and pearl earrings. These were a gift from The Queen to Meghan and have a small round diamond post stud with a larger round pearl drop. We have seen this style of earring worn by Queen Mary of Teck, the Queen Mother, Queen Elizabeth, Sophie, Countess of Wessex and The Duchess of Cambridge.
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The Queen owns two pairs of these earrings, a larger pair known as the ‘Ladies of Devonshire Earrings’ that were originally Queen Mary’s and feature a larger star pointed diamond, and a smaller button pair thought to be a wedding gift from Queen Mary to her granddaughter Princess Elizabeth. The smaller button earrings are more in line with Meghan’s. It is thought Queen Mary inherited the larger pair from Queen Alexandra on her death and that Queen Elizabeth then inherited them from Queen Mary on her death, when looking at when each women started to wear them.
You can actually purchase a pair of earrings based of Queen Mary’s button studs from The Historic Royal Places shop, purchase here. Get the a very affordable replicate here.
She also wore a tennis-style bracelet. Updates when we have them.
It appears that Meghan has a love of vintage style fashion of the 50’s and 60’s, really looking to Jackie O and Audrey Hepburn as her fashion icons. We are a little disappointed that Meghan did not choose to wear a hat for an engagement with the Queen, even a small pillbox or wide headband could have just added that final touch of finesse. Do you love Meghan’s vintage ensembles?
Get the Duchess of Sussex’s style here:
The work that goes into putting this together it’s admirable! Thank you so much for doing this I enjoyed it!