A royal misunderstanding? Christine Kendall, a designer based in Hertfordshire, England, is claiming that Sarah Burton, the creative director at fashion house Alexander McQueen, used her ideas for Kate Middleton‘s royal wedding dress.
As reported by The Sunday Times, Kendall says that she sent her sketches to the Duchess of Cambridge, 34, ahead of her 2011 nuptials to Prince William. The designer believes that without her sketches, Middleton’s instantly iconic wedding dress would not have looked the way it did.
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“Proceedings have been issued because our client is certain that her company’s design was unfairly taken and copied,” Kendall’s lawyer, Humna Nadim, said in a statement. Nadim also noted, “This claim is not against the duchess and there is no allegation of wrongdoing against the palace.”
A representative at McQueen, however, says the company is “utterly baffled” by the allegations. “Christine Kendall first approached us at Alexander McQueen almost four years ago, when we were clear with her that any suggestion Sarah Burton’s design of the royal wedding dress was copied from her designs was nonsense,” said the spokesperson to WWD.
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The rep continued, “Sarah Burton never saw any of Ms. Kendall’s designs or sketches and did not know of Ms. Kendall before Ms. Kendall got in touch with us — some 13 months after the wedding. We do not know why Ms. Kendall has raised this again, but there are no ifs, buts or maybes here: This claim is ridiculous.”
In 2012, Burton was given the high honor of The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (or an OBE), in part for her work on the duchess’ dress, which boasted lace sleeves, a sweetheart neckline, a Victorian-style bustle and an almost 9-foot train.
