‘There wasn’t a surefire person’
Alexandra Shulman was behind one of the biggest moments in fashion history: deciding which designer the Princess of Wales should wear for her 2011 wedding to Prince William. “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,” says the former editor-in-chief of British Vogue. “I was absolutely thrilled to bits.” Alexandra recalls the process in her new book, Black Coffee and Red Lipstick: Notes on Living. Sworn to secrecy, she compiled pictures from various Vogue photo shoots of designers she thought might work. “I didn’t know how designer-literate she was, because at this point she wasn’t wearing McQueen or Erdem,” she says. “Try as I might, I couldn’t find a single picture of a British designer who had a lovely conventional white dress. Every one had spooky make-up. Anyway, we talked, and at the end she asked me who I thought would be best.” “There wasn’t a surefire person. I thought Vivienne Westwood would be great, but …








