The black Armani dress worn by Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, during her and Prince Harry’s bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey has been selected as the 2021 Dress of the Year by the United Kingdom’s Fashion Museum Bath.
The long, triple silk georgette dress, with a deep front, lotus flower embroidery and a matching belt, is from Giorgio Armani’s Spring/Summer 2022 Cruise Collection, and retails for $4,700.
Since 1963, the Fashion Museum has invited a renowned figure from the fashion industry to select a dress — or sometimes multiple ensembles — of the year. The choice, which then becomes part of the institution’s far-reaching collection, is meant to encapsulate the prevailing mood of fashion, represent the past year and capture the imagination.
This year’s selectors were Ibrahim Kamara and Gareth Wrighton, respectively editor in chief and art director of Dazed magazine. Last year, a dress of their own creation — called the Dress of Hope — was selected among the museum’s 2020 winning outfits.
“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,” they said in a statement.
“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 ingrained in our pop culture psyche.”
The interview, aired by CBS in the US and ITV in the UK in March 2021, was broadcast in an additional 70 countries and drew an estimated 60 million viewers worldwide.
The museum has already placed the dress on display as the final item in an exhibition called “A History of Fashion in 100 Objects”.
In previous years, the Dress of the Year has featured the work of designers such as Kenzo Takada, Missoni, Calvin Klein, Miuccia Prada, Karl Lagerfeld, Alexander McQueen, Tom Ford, Raf Simons and Nicolas Ghesquière. (CNN)
