At this year’s Bazaar At Work Summit, one of the most well-respected and successful fashion designers of this generation, Clare Waight Keller, sat down with our editor-in-chief Lydia Slater to discuss her career highlights. The designer – who has held the prestigious role of creative director at Pringle, Chloé and Givenchy – opened up about some of the biggest challenges she’s had to face, explained why taking a step back from the industry has been so positive, and detailed what it was like to dress Meghan Markle for her wedding day.
“When I look back at my career, it is the most challenging things I took on that really made me,” she said. “I made myself go to those really uncomfortable places that are almost on the edge of the boundary in your mind, but actually, you can always go beyond what you think you can do.”
From moving to America straight out of university to taking on top roles from a young age, Waight Keller has continued to surprise herself with the challenges that she has risen to. One of these was, of course, designing one of the most talked-about dresses in recent history: the Duchess of Sussex’s wedding gown. The designer told the audience how hands-on Meghan was with the process, and how lovely the relationship they developed was.
“She was very involved,” said Waight Keller. “Obviously, any woman really knows what she wants when it comes to her wedding dress, but this was on such a scale – there was so much importance on this and what it represented, so there were lots of symbolic things that she really wanted to include.”
“The whole experience was so wonderful; obviously it was such a huge honour and a privilege, but it was also a complete pleasure,” she added. “It was done so privately – only the two of us knew about it for about five months, so our relationship really blossomed into a lovely personal friendship.”
Following this huge career milestone, Waight Keller decided to take some time off from the fashion industry, stepping down from her role at Givenchy and spending more time with her family. This happened right at the start of the pandemic, and was – she says – the best possible decision.
“I had been working at such a pace my whole career – you just don’t stop to take a pause – and actually it was really interesting to sit on the outside of fashion and observe it. For so long, I had been on that hamster wheel, just constantly creating. So, it was great to take some time to actually look at what could be an interesting next challenge for me.”
During the chat, Waight Keller also discussed the vital need for the fashion industry to have more women in top jobs.
“The lack of equality in terms of those higher roles is disappointing and it’s really such a shame because I think that women have such an incredible, innate and instinctual understanding of clothes,” she said. “Where a male designer thinks mostly about the silhouette or making a statement, a woman also thinks about what another woman actually wants to wear. It is that balance between craftsmanship and wearability.”
See more highlights from the 2023 Bazaar At Work Summit here.
