The dress of the year turned out to be beautifully simple. Clare Waight Keller, who in 2017 became the first female artistic designer to lead the historic house of Givenchy, created a haute couture dress of clean lines and timeless elegance, with minimal adornment on snowy silk.

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The spectacular gown – whose secret was successfully kept – marks a huge moment for 47-year-old Waight Keller, who helmed Chloé and Pringle before joining Givenchy. Her Paris fashion week collections for Givenchy have won praise for their modern glamour, but this commission will catapult her name to a new level.



The design recalled Hubert de Givenchy’s most famous client, Audrey Hepburn, with a bateau neckline similar to the wedding dress worn by the actor in the 1957 film Funny Face, for which Givenchy made the wardrobe.

After the chaos of the days leading up to the ceremony, the dress turned out to be one element of the narrative over which the wedding party had retained smooth control. Waight Keller’s name was barely mentioned among the runners and riders in the rumour mill. For fashion observers who had been led to expect a gown by Ralph & Russo, known for their lavishly decorated, crystal-bedecked gowns, this pure white dress looked like a long, cool glass of water.



By choosing a British woman to make her dress, the Duchess of Sussex followed in the footsteps of her sister-in-law the Duchess of Cambridge, whose 2011 gown was designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Clare Waight Keller at Paris fashion week in March. Photograph: Alain Jocard/AFP/Getty Images

Formal and demure but with crisp, unfussy lines, the dress seemed nicely weighted between the demands of a royal wedding and the personality of a Californian-born, independent-spirited bride, who looked not only radiantly happy, but cheeringly comfortable.

The dress, refreshingly, did not appear to be corseted to within an inch of its life, and the wedding up-do was just a dressier version of Markle’s trademark messy bun.

For an American audience whose impression of what the British aristocracy look like has been shaped by Downton Abbey, this dress had the required glamour. The diamond bandeau tiara was Queen Mary’s, but had a touch of Wonder Woman about it. For a woman who is being framed as both princess and feminist icon, it was the perfect finishing touch.



Facebook Twitter Pinterest Prince Harry and Meghan Markle ride in a horse-drawn carriage after their wedding. Photograph: Mike Egerton/PA

Message-wise, it was left to the veil to do the heavy lifting. The bride, who intends to make the Commonwealth the focus of her official role, asked to have all member states represented. Waight Keller researched the national flora of each country, and embroidered 55 flowers into the silk tulle – from the African violet of Tanzania to the Solomon Island’s hibiscus – as well as Wintersweet, which grows in the garden of the couple’s Nottingham Cottage home, and the California poppy to represent her place of birth.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pageboys carry Markle’s veil as she walks down the aisle. Photograph: Pool/Reuters

There was more storytelling in the bouquet. Prince Harry picked white flowers from the couple’s garden on Friday to mix with sweet peas and lily of the valley, and forget-me-nots, which were the favourite flower of his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.



• This article was amended on 21 May 2018 to correct a knots/nots homophone.