Designer Wedding Style at a Royal Wedding

The recent Royal Spanish wedding of Prince Felipe and Letizia Ortiz offered some truly great examples of classic elegance. The bride herself chose award winning Spanish designer Manuel Pertegaz to create her gown. The Queen Sofía also wore a dress designed by Pertegaz for the wedding banquet. Pertegaz has a long (he’s 87!) and illustrious career as a designer, having created outfits for such legendary leading ladies as Eva Gardener, Jackie Kennedy and Joan Crawford.

The off-white silk gown was inspired by the ‘princess’ style outline, which comprised of a fitted bodice and flowing skirt that skimmed out from the waist, and ended in the 4.5m train, embroidered with heraldry representations of the fleur-de-lis, lily, wheat and clover. The embroidery, in silver and black threads, is also on the unusual high collar and sleeves. The modesty of the overall design shows that you don´t have to bare flesh to be beautiful on your wedding day.

After the ceremony, the bride changed into a sophisticated silver dress by Lorenzo Caprile, one of Span’s leading designers of bridal wear. My favourite fashion pick from the guests would be another silver gown, this one by Givenchy, which was worn by Queen Rania of Jordan.

You would think that having an unlimited budget and the best designers at your disposal would guarantee you a free pass from the fashion-police, but experience (and Hollywood) have shown us that this is not the case, and this wedding was no exception. The two most notable culprits to be thrown in the sin bin have to be. . .

Miriam Ungria, in a blue frilly number that can only have been inspired by one of those toilet roll cover dolls that used to adorn every grandmother´s bathroom.

and

Ágatha Ruiz who, as a designer for Prada, should really have something better in her wardrobe.