Meghan Markle's Armani Wrap Dress Will Be Displayed At Fashion Museum Bath
She famously wore the silk piece during her and Prince Harry's sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey.
Photo: Getty
Meghan Markle's Armani Wrap Dress Will Be Displayed St Fashion Museum Bath
One of Duchess Meghan's most iconic pieces of apparel is heading to a museum.
Fashion Museum Bath announced today that the Armani wrap dress the Duchess of Sussex wore during her televised sit-down interview with Oprah Winfrey last year has been named Dress of the Year 2021.
The museum's accolade is annually selected by a leading industry authority who chooses a dress representative of the past year's prevailing mood in fashion and culture. This year, Dazed magazine's editor in chief, Ibrahim Kamara, and art director, Gareth Wrighton, bestowed the award.
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"In today's hyper-stylised pop culture, the Dress of the Year now has the potential to also be 'meme of the year' and we both latched upon Meghan and Harry's now iconic interview with Oprah as the definitive anti-establishment moment that will forever endure in the British collective consciousness," the duo said in a statement, per a press release.
"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," they added.
For the highly anticipated Oprah with Meghan and Harry: A CBS Primetime Special—during which Harry and Meghan spoke to Winfrey about their decision to step back as working members of the royal family and relocate to California—the duchess wore the sweeping silk georgette dress from Armani's spring/summer 2022 cruise collection. (At the time, Meghan was pregnant with her and Harry's second child, baby girl Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor.)
The black dress, which featured a V-neck cut and a high-waist belt, also bore a white embroidered floral print on the chest. The museum's press release noted that the lotus flower design may also have doubled as a symbolic expression of "rebirth, self-regeneration and spiritual enlightenment, and its ability to flourish despite seemingly challenging conditions."
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Duchess Meghan and Prince Harry sit down with Oprah Winfrey. Photo: Getty
Meghan Markle's Armani Wrap Dress Will Be Displayed St Fashion Museum Bath
"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," Rosemary Harden, the museum's manager, said in a statement.
Museum visitors will be able to see a version of the dress as the final item in the exhibition "A History of Fashion in 100 Objects."
This article originally appeared on Harper’s BAZAAR US.
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