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The $4,750 black Armani dress Duchess of Sussex Meghan Markle wore during her sit-down with husband Prince Harry and Oprah Winfrey is being touted as 2021’s Dress of the Year by Bath, England’s Fashion Museum.
Specifically, it’s not the “screen-used” garment, to use movie industry parlance, but a version of the “triple silk georgette dress” donated by Armani that matches the one Markle wore during the headline-grabbing interview.
The piece will become a part of Fashion Museum Bath’s “A History of Fashion in 100 Objects” exhibition.
The “Dress of the Year” honor was bestowed upon the garment by last year’s winners, Dazed magazine’s Ibrahim Kamara and Gareth Wrighton. Their “Dress of Hope” snagged the honor for the pandemic year 2020.
On the museum’s website, the designers called the Oprah interview “the definitive anti-establishment moment that will forever endure in the British collective consciousness.”
And in case you don’t think headlines about the so-called “runaway royals” are already hyperbolic enough, the designers continued about the enshrined ensemble: “Meghan’s wrap dress by Armani, worn to showcase a divine pregnancy, framed the Duchess in black against the bountiful landscaping of Tyler Perry‘s Hollywood garden. This look now, through sheer association with a viral television moment, is firmly engrained in our pop culture psyche.”
Rosemary Harden, Fashion Museum Bath’s manager, added, “…There are moments in history that are all about the dress…The softly structured Armani dress with beautiful appliquéd lotus flower motif was part of a carefully curated look, guaranteed to send messages, and to imprint itself in our consciousness time and time again.”
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