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Meghan Markle Reportedly Considers Israeli Fashion Designer for Her Royal Wedding Gown

The future Duchess of Something may be planning to dress Yiddish and think British. Don’t tell her it’s actually the other way around.

by
Rachel Shukert
December 21, 2017
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace on November 27, 2017.Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Chris Jackson/Getty Images
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announce their engagement at The Sunken Gardens at Kensington Palace on November 27, 2017.Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Remember how I recently broke the crushing news that Meghan Markle, Prince Harry’s soon-to-be new Princess (or whatever, Duchess, they seem to be finicky about that stuff over there) is not actually Jewish, despite rumors to the contrary (although she is an actress/Hollywood person, which in the eyes of the Royal Family, is probably almost the same thing; also, does that mean she might one day play herself in a far off season of The Crown, the way Joan and Melissa Rivers played themselves in the TV movie they made about the suicide of their husband and father, Edgar Rosenberg, because why should someone else have the work?)

However! Her wedding dress designer might be Jewish! According to Elle, one of the designers in hot contention to the create the gown that is sure to launch a million trends (you couldn’t buy a wedding dress with sleeves before Kate Middleton, and believe me, I know because I tried) is Israeli Inbal Dror. Best known for her “barely-there” lines and lingerie inspired pieces, an aesthetic honed during her tenure at the famously risqué label Roberto Cavalli, Dror does not exactly have the kind of resume one might expect from a designer likely to create a demure royal wedding gown, although she is known for incorporating dramatic trains into her designs, the sort that would look perfect trailing down the aisle at Windsor Castle, where the couple has elected to hold their nuptials.

Dror, if chosen, wouldn’t be the first Jewish designer of a royal wedding gown: Princess Diana’s oft-copied and instantly iconic meringue-on-top-of-a-pavlova-on-top-of-a-baked-Alaska taffeta confection was created by the Jewish British designer Elizabeth Emanuel (who often dressed the princess throughout the 80s.) But she would still be seen as a non-traditional choice: much as First Ladies have often chosen to wear American designers (our present Gucci and Dior clad cypher notwithstanding) in order to bring visibility to the domestic fashion business, Windsor brides have typically chosen to highlight UK labels for their big day (the aforementioned Kate, now the Duchess of Cambridge, wore Alexander McQueen, an unconventional but solidly British choice.)

But members of the royal family have typically chosen British spouses as well. As the first American to marry into the royal family since 1937 (when Edward VIII married Wallis Simpson, thus abdicating his crown removing himself from the line of succession and living out the rest of his life in privileged boredom as a jet-setting parasite), and the first person of color ever, Meghan Markle might figure she may as well break one more barrier. Dror’s sketches might be a trial balloon, or they might be the real deal, but for now, it seems like the future Duchess of Something is planning to dress Yiddish, think British. Don’t tell her it’s not actually the other way around.

Rachel Shukert is the author of the memoirs Have You No Shame? and Everything Is Going To Be Great,and the novel Starstruck. She is the creator of the Netflix show The Baby-Sitters Club, and a writer on such series as GLOW and Supergirl. Her Twitter feed is @rachelshukert.