Favourites to make the royal wedding dress

Phillipa Lepley couture shop in London is one of the bookmakers current favourites to make the Royal wedding dress for Kate Middleton.

Sometimes a dress is just a dress. But not in Kate Middleton’s case. Her wedding dress is far more than just a simple gown: It is the garment that will mark her transformation from commoner to princess, from Kate to Catherine, and define how she is seen by billions of people as they watch her exchange vows with Prince William on April 29.

This wedding dress must be elegant, memorable, perfectly fitted, modern but traditional, alluring but not too sexy, classy but not too opulent, evocative of Princess Diana but not a direct copy of her style. A tall order indeed for a bunch of expensive material cut to fit a young woman’s slender frame.