Clare Waight-Keller, Meghan Markle’s Favourite Givenchy Designer, Says They Have “An Unbreakable Bond”

‘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...’

It was just over a year ago, last May, that Clare Waight Keller, the artistic director of Givenchy, was revealed as the designer behind Meghan Markle’s wedding dress. It was a total surprise. Amid all the rumours that had swirled around The Dress, her name hadn’t even once come up. If you were one of the 1.9 billion viewers glued to your TV screen that day, you may have spotted Clare in the shadows of Windsor Castle, in a discreet navy ensemble, attending to the train of the gown. Not a Cinderella confection or a fairy-tale fantasy, the dress she produced was breathtakingly brave in its simplicity and as unexpected as the news of the woman behind it. And so, in those few minutes, she became a household name.

Clare Waight grew up in a semi in Birmingham where her mother’s ‘atelier’ – the kitchen, that is – was always in full swing, the sewing machine a permanent fixture on the table, the ironing board in the hall. ‘Don’t move, don’t move, I’m going to pin you, don’t move!’ her mother would say, before Waight-Keller and her sister were old enough to become her helpers. ‘It wasn’t like, “OK, we’ve made that now, we won’t work on something for another six months.” We never tidied anything away because we were just constantly having to create stuff, so it was quite good training in the end.'

We meet in London’s Chiltern Firehouse and it’s the second time in the space of two weeks (the first being on our cover shoot) that I am not air-kissed – as is customary in fashion – but hugged. It’s not every day a designer goes out of their way to put you at ease. But then Waight-Keller is just about as far away from the modern designer archetype as it is possible to get. You wouldn’t even pick her out in a fashion designer line-up – no statement hair, tattoos, eccentric glasses or wild get-up. Today, she wears a chic checked pencil skirt, neat black coat (both Givenchy) and white box-fresh Adidas – ‘my running-to-work outfit' – which is precisely what she’s going to do in one hour. She spends three 'intensive' days in Paris every week at Givenchy HQ with her design teams and, on Thursday evenings, takes the last train home to her husband, Philip and their three children, twins Charlotte and Amelia, 16, and Harrison, who has just turned eight. I have to say, she looks remarkably radiant, with not a scrap of make-up, given that she spent yesterday hosting Harrison’s birthday party – Laser Quest for 20 boys.

But then this is a woman who relishes a challenge. In March 2017, after months of speculation,she was made artistic director of Givenchy, with creative control over every aspect of the brand’s output – from couture to men’s and women’s ready-to- wear, accessories and fragrance. The kind of influence over a house that is rare, even in the upper echelons of fashion, and puts her on a par with the likes of Hedi Slimane at Celine and Alessandro Michele at Gucci. That it was a total surprise – yet again, her name didn’t come up in the running – says nothing about her qualities as a designer.

A spotless career – after graduating with a master’s degree in knitwear from the Royal College of Art, Waight-Keller had stints at Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren and Gucci, as well as two successful brand resuscitations at Pringle and Chloé. That her name was overlooked in relation to one of the most prestigious jobs in fashion says everything about the kind of designer industry- watchers have front of mind when it comes to major reshuffles: the bombastic, alpha-personality type known for one singular inflexible vision.

Which is why nobody saw it coming. Not least, because under her Givenchy predecessor Riccardo Tisci, the brand pursued a dark Gothic glamour aesthetic with a side of Kim Kardashian (often seen pouting on his Instagram). Waight-Keller, meanwhile, arrived off the back of a six-year tenure at Chloé, which served an entirely different customer. One who loved bohemian billowy dresses, pretty blouses, tomboy-cool tracksuits, hip denim and more than the occasional It bag and boot (Chloé’s sales were estimated at €400 million the year Waight-Keller left). She believes the Arnaults (the powerful family that owns Givenchy) bought into her ethos. ‘I said to them, “I don’t want to be known for one thing.” It’s precisely because I want to do something different that intrigued them, and that I love the challenge of change, moving on and diving into something new.’

It’s true that it’s her flexibility as a designer that is her underlying strength. From her days at Calvin Klein in ’90s New York at the height of Kate Moss waifdom and the bulging boxer shorts of Marky Mark, to the early noughties in London when she learned all there was to know about glamour and branding from Tom Ford (the man who once shaved a perfect ‘G’ into the pubic hair of a model for the purposes of an ad campaign), assimilating herself into different brands, cultures and cities is what she’s done her whole career. ‘In fact, I’ve probably learned to do that more than any other, because I’ve changed so much, worked at so many places before I even became a creative director, that immersing myself in brand identities feels really natural for me.’

It has been remarkable to watch her swift transformation of Givenchy. When she arrived, she buried herself in the archives. ‘My big goal going in there was to re-establish the couture,’ she says, having never previously tackled it before. No pressure, then. ‘The fact that Hubert [de Givenchy] started it as this couture maison felt fundamental to the DNA of the business. And so I saw couture as the pinnacle of the house, the laboratory that filters the entire company creatively.’ She nailed her first (ever) couture collection six months in, with impeccably narrow coats and precise jackets placed over glittering, complex gowns. It was so strikingly refined and modern that it gave many of the audience goosebumps. And her vision for the ready-to-wear? ‘A modern, strong woman. Someone who’s very independent and confident, who travels, works, is passionate about the way they look and really has a strength of personality through the way they dress.’ Sounds very much like Waight-Keller herself. She has also delivered those all-important hit bags, first the GV3, a 1970s cross-body with a chunky chain strap and now the Mystic, the discreet-chic, top-handle number you see in our shoot.

But what of the recent announcement that Ariana Grande is the new face of the brand? The 25-year-old ponytailed singing sensation is quite a surprise choice, I venture. ‘She’s incredibly talented and strong, an absolute contrast to what you think I would like; that clash is what’s so interesting about it,’ says Waight-Keller, adding that there has always been a history of surprising women associated with the brand. ‘Even Audrey was a surprise choice. I mean, Hubert famously didn’t think much of her when she walked through the door – and then she became this huge icon and was forever entwined in the history of the house.’ Audrey Hepburn was Hubert’s lifelong muse. As for Waight-Keller’s, does that title belong to the Duchess of Sussex?

On their relationship, she says: ‘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.’ In the run-up to the wedding, Waight-Keller says, they met many times, in a way that never felt official or stately. ‘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.’ All of which became The Dress that spoke on so many levels.

The lack of frou-frou underscored the independence of the woman wearing it. It celebrated female strength in the rigour of its pure lines and just six precisely placed seams. The fabric, a specially woven, double-bonded silk cady served as a light-reflecting mirror to make her glow. ‘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.’ And keeping it all a secret? ‘Literally by not telling anyone [not even Philip or Givenchy – she did all the fittings herself ]. Like a doctor’s law in that you don’t talk about your patients, so I just stuck to that principle.’

And then, of course, it was Meghan who surprised her friend when she presented Waight-Keller with the British Designer of the Year Award at the Royal Albert Hall – to the absolute shock and delight of the audience. ‘I suppose it showed a lot of people how deep our friendship had got,’ says Waight-Keller, with typical understatement given the giant hugs centre-stage. ‘It was extremely kind of her to do that because she didn’t have to, obviously, but she chose to do it, which I thought just shows her level of thought and emotion about people, how much she values people and feels for them.’ Since we’re on a roll here, I ask if she’s been introduced to Archie. ‘I haven’t met him yet, but I’m sure soon.’ And will Givenchy be dressing the mini royal? She winces a little, then laughs: ‘I wouldn’t dream of imposing. I think she’s got quite a clear idea of what she wants, always, but I’m sure he’s going to be a very different royal.’

Having the royal seal of approval bestowed on her in her first year at Givenchy (‘I was like, “How am I going to top that?”’) is nothing short of extraordinary, a once-in-a-lifetime deal. It has not only done wonders for her– she was named in Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential list last month – it’s also given Givenchy stratospheric visibility: if the young royals aren’t today’s most-watched influencers, I don’t know who are. Add to that the astounding roll call of red-carpet moments that Givenchy is clocking up – Julianne Moore, Cate Blanchett, Rosamund Pike, to name just a few who wear Waight-Keller’s Givenchy on repeat. They love the way they feel in her dresses, she tells me. ‘I suppose that also comes from me now doing a little bit of the red carpet thing with them.’ She appeared at the Met Ball a few weeks ago alongside Gal Gadot in coordinating Givenchy couture – Waight-Keller in black blade-sharp jacket and second-skin black latex, Gadot in white lace, with matching pearl headbands. They looked sensational.

I wonder if she’s getting used to the limelight? ‘Well, with Gal, we got ready together in the same dressing room, we were chatting, and that kind of makes a big difference, getting to know someone. It was really fun.’ When I ask Waight-Keller what three traits best define her, she says calm first, then curiosity. Even when she escapes down to Cornwall, her farmhouse family retreat, she’ll be in her garden designing the flowers, or buying vintage furniture for the house or endless books. ‘I’m an absolute eBay addict, constantly trawling. It’s like a nervous tic.’ And what’s the third thing? ‘People would always describe me as being quite British, I definitely hear that in Paris a lot.’ As a compliment, I ask? ‘I think so. I’m not the diva, prima-donna designer, that is not me. I guess British in the way that we just get on with it, we don’t really complain too much, don’t have dramas about things – something that’s quite foreign over there.’

That said, she clearly loves working in the crème de la crème of fashion capitals – ‘Paris only competes with itself ’ – and enjoys the creative status it brings her. The French are very good at hierarchy, they like the kind of heavily structured system inherent in global corporations ‘that fortunately I have complete comfort with, but you have to be tough and confident with strong resolve. You have to shoulder a lot, more than a man in this business.’

Her story is about the triumph of the quiet designer. Waight-Keller, the ultimate slow-burn success story, gaining recognition later in life – she is 48 – means that she can finally enjoy it more. ‘I’ve got to that point where I don’t stress about a lot of things like I did 10 years ago.’ Such as? ‘Oh, all those external opinions that really hamper the design process, worrying whether the next thing is going to be right. Now, I just follow my instincts.’ Instincts that are proving to be as sharp as a pin.

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