I'm gonna go ahead and give my vote for my "I... die" of the year. It--hands down--goes to the new Duchess of Windsor, Princess Kate Middleton, in the Sarah Burton/Alexander McQueen gown she wore on her wedding day.
In a year that also saw the stylish nuptials of the *other* Kate (a personal muse, Ms. Moss), the Princess stole the hearts of all with a perfectly restrained amount of pomp and circumstance. I was overly touched by the ceremony, and also by the respectful tribute Kate played to the late McQueen, the genius artist/fashion designer and London's resident enfant terrible who committed suicide earlier in the year.
This utterly major fashion moment also solidified the coming out of McQueen's protege, Sarah Burton, whose dedication to the gown (and the label she made it for) won her an endless amount of new fans.
Her combination of the world's most beautiful lace, the conservative long sleeve, the oh-so-subtle difference in white tones, the skin-tight, sculptural bodice, and the waist-emphasizing volume in the crisp A-line skirt was nothing short of ethereal. Time stopped as Kate exited the car and prepared to walk down the aisle of Westminster Abbey. Her sister held her train, forming the most perfect drape as she waved over her shoulder. The moment was almost unreal, even for a gal in a different country. No longer was I sitting cross-legged on the floor of my Philadelphia apartment, on the wrong side of sleep, in yoga pants and my boyfriend's button down with my hair pulled back into a disaster. I froze from painstakingly hand-beading a corset I'd been working on for my final collection in Fashion School. I was a pre-transformed Cinderella of sorts carried away in a whirlwind to another continent, experiencing the sweeping emotions of the moment, subconsciously and vicariously living through Kate.
Wouldn't you have to agree with my fashion moment of the year?
