* YOU BEEN SNAP * Operation Meringue: How Kate hid The Dress from the world"

*BY FLORA LYIMO DESIGNER*
A flash of ivory silk and white lace as she stepped out of the wedding car and Kate Middleton’s triumphant smile said it all. Despite her humble origins and lack of media training, she’d pulled off the biggest coup in fashion history.
Somehow she’d outwitted the world’s media and maintained a cast-iron curtain of secrecy over the identity of her wedding dress designer.
As planned, at 11.01am on her wedding day she placed one graceful, hand-stitched, satin court shoe on to the red carpet at Westminster Abbey. Cue gasps of amazement as audiences worldwide got their first glimpse of The Dress.

Dressed to impress: Kate and William with their young attendants (clockwise from top left) Lady Louise Windsor, Tom Pettifer, Billy Lowther-Pinkerton, Margarita Armstrong-Jones, Eliza Lopes and Grace van Cutsem

Finally, Alexander McQueen designer Sarah Burton’s name was out of the bag. Operation Meringue had been a success.
Ever since William and Kate announced their engagement last November, no one save a few members of the Alexander McQueen design team and the Middleton clan knew the identity of the designer. Speculation was rife, with names including Jasper Conran, Daniella Helayel and Alice Temperley in the frame.
Bruce Oldfield shortened the odds slightly when with hours to go before Friday’s wedding he issued a statement saying it wasn’t him.

So how did she do it? How did Kate manage to outfox them all? The story could make a movie with stories of secret locked rooms, clandestine meetings and false trails. All deployed to keep the media off the scent.
According to friends, Kate had a clear idea of her dream dress even before William proposed. She was drawn to the understated, modest elegance of Grace Kelly, whose gowns went on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum last April.

Prince William and his wife Kate, Duchess of Cambridge wave from the balcony of Buckingham Palace after the Royal Wedding

Kate Middleton arrives with her sister Philippa Middleton to the West Door of Westminster Abbey

Once the wedding date was announced, British designers waited with bated breath to hear who’d bagged the commission of the century. Like Diana before her, Kate’s first port of call was fashion mecca Vogue magazine.
Editor Alexandra Shulman confirmed she was asked to submit a list of suggested designers and placed Burton’s name at the top. Counsel was also sought from Sara Buys, the fashion editor wife of Camilla’s son Tom Parker Bowles, who chose McQueen for her wedding dress.
Exactly when Burton was chosen, and when she received the call that would change the course of an already successful career, remains a secret. A contract was involved, insiders say, in which Burton and certain select, unnumbered and unnamed, members of her team were forbidden even to confirm they’d been chosen if approached.
The standard denial, as directed by St James’s Palace, was worded thus: ‘We’re not going to comment on any speculation about the bridal gown or who might be making it. Miss Middleton is keen to keep one secret for the big day.’
Initial consultations are said to have taken place over the internet on Skype, and personal fittings arranged in secret at Kate and William’s farmhouse in Anglesey, Wales. Even the team of seamstresses wasn’t party to the full design.
The dress is said to have been stitched in separate sections and put together only at the last possible moment, within the confines of Buckingham Palace where a special workroom was set up.

Trailing train: Kate Middleton ascends the steps of Westminster Abbey with her father Michael on her left

The dress the world wanted to see: Kate's silk and ivory gown had been a tightly guarded secret before the wedding day

The lacework for the dress was carried out at the studios at the Royal School of Needlework at Hampton Court Palace, but then the army of embroiderers were not told which bride would be receiving their painstaking work. Susan Kay-Williams, the RSN’s chief executive, said: ‘We didn’t know who the designer was until shortly before the public was told. That seemed appropriate.’
The workforce, estimated to be at least 12 strong, included students from Britain, Japan, China, the U.S., Thailand and Germany — aged between 19 and 70. 
All were required to wash their hands every 30 minutes to keep the lace and threads pristine, and to renew needles every three hours to maintain optimum sharpness.
The embroiderers said they were thrilled the dress received a rapturous reception when it was finally revealed.
Anne Butcher, 44, from Sandhurst, Berkshire, said: ‘We’ve all enjoyed the experience. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance. We’ve worked as a team and we are pleased with the response to the dress.’
Jenny Adin-Christie, 33, from Chessington, Surrey, said: ‘It makes it worth all the years of training as an embroiderer.’
While Amanda Ewing, 36, from Workington, Cumbria, said: ‘It was an amazing experience.’ 
They all hope the Duchess of Cambridge will come to see them some time.

WEDDING DRESS TO GO ON SHOW TO THE PUBLIC

Kate Middleton plans to put her stunning wedding dress on display to raise money for charities close to her heart.
No decision has been taken yet about where or when the Sarah Burton-designed gown will go on show, although there have been suggestions that it could be moved to Buckingham Palace in time for its official annual summer opening.
Sources close to the Duchess of Cambridge have told the Mail that she has been ‘delighted and touched’ by public reaction to the dress.
But when she appeared at Buckingham Palace on Saturday morning, she went for something far less exclusive – a £49.99 cornflower blue pleated dress from high street chain Zara.
Last night the 100 per cent polyester dress was no longer available on the shop’s website and stores were poised to sell out.
She also wore £129 black patent platform pumps from LK Bennett, which she had worn while to arrive at The Goring hotel the night before the wedding. They may have been snapped up while on sale from the store in London’s King’s Road, where Kate was spotted last week.

It has also been suggested that Kate and Sarah used private chambers of Hampton Court as a secret rendezvous; an intrigue the palace’s original inhabitant — Henry VIII — would have approved of.
Back at the McQueen headquarters in Clerkenwell, staff spoke of a locked room on the executive floor which only Burton and a few colleagues were allowed to enter.
A nightshift of seamstresses would be smuggled in, working into the early hours after regular staff had gone home.
One worker, who was not in on the secret, has said suspicions were aroused when she and colleagues arrived for work at 9am to find people beavering away at their sewing machines.
The worker said: ‘Apart from when they are incredibly busy in the run-up to fashion week, everyone arrives at the same time. There were lots of whisperings and secret meetings; we started to think Sarah was making Kate’s gown.’
Was it the threat of dismissal, the promise of a generous bonus, or good-old British sportsmanship that secured their silence? No one knows, but whatever it was, it worked. No one breathed a word.
Another — naturally unconfirmed — rumour was that Kate had commissioned two back-up dresses; if one designer leaked, she’d resort to Plan B or C. The finished dress was initially housed under lock and key at Clarence House before spending its final night mounted on a couture bust, made to Kate’s exact measurements, at The Goring Hotel.
Even with all of the hotel’s 71 rooms booked out by the Middleton party, still Kate was taking no chances and had the dress locked away under guard. When Burton was spotted leaving her home at 5am, then helping Kate into the glass-roofed Rolls-Royce that was to take her to her new life as the Duchess of Cambridge, bookies finally started paying out to all those lucky punters who’d placed bets on a McQueen dress.
As two billion people watched from all over the globe, the secret was finally, officially revealed to an explosion of Union Jacks and cheers.
It was exactly as Kate had wanted.