Sienna Miller always plays by her own rules. Uggs at a mud-soaked Glastonbury? No bother for a woman in neon rave shades and a coin belt in ’04. Deliciously naughty naked dresses as a new mother? Why not when your four-month-old is sleeping through the night and you’re “feeling great?” This weekend, Miller attended the wedding of David Winter and Georgia Irwin in Venice wearing a tangerine slip dress that is an adaptation of a Savannah Miller bridal gown. She has worn the fiery number before.
While Vogue has never subscribed to archaic wedding lore that decrees guests can’t wear black or white and that rewearing looks would provoke audible gasps of horror, we’re still shocked by tales of brides who set very strict and uncompromising dress codes for their supposed closest friends. When your sister is a bridal designer, you’ve got license to RSVP no to overbearing instructions and instead phone-in bespoke pieces that hit the mark in less obvious ways than lilac and lace.
“Sienna’s gown is a design based on our Honor silk slip dress, inspired by the understated minimalism of the ’90s,” says its maker, Savannah. “Sienna has a unique vision and the ability to be brave and bold in her fashion choices, so when she requested this in a burnt tangerine colorway for a red-carpet event in 2018, it was thrilling. This piece is a timeless classic and its versatility made it perfect for an elegant summer wedding.”
Sienna flexed her creative muscle (the pair ran cool London label Twenty8Twelve in the Noughties together) once again when it came to her sister’s wedding in December 2022. She commissioned Savannah to make her an ice-blue velvet version of the Savannah Miller bridal Cerise dress: a cowl-neck, spaghetti-strap number with a scooped back and elegant train. Instead of the flowing lengths, Sienna ordered a chop to make it even slinkier. “It’s effortless, it’s sexy, it’s ’90s–all the good words,” Savannah told Vogue just 48 hours before her Petersham Nurseries nuptials, when Sienna was yet to fly in from New York and try on her bespoke mini. There was zero worry in the atelier: “There’s only a certain number of people who can get away with these looks, and Sienna is one of them.”
In Savannah’s world, wedding attire “should feel like a direct reflection of the people who wear it”. There should be no new rules or seismic shifts in our sanity simply because the stakes are high for a woman in a white dress. Further proof that rewearing is an essential part of getting dressed? The Galvan slip Sienna chose for her baby shower in November and a Kensington Palace event in 2021 that would have looked equally chic at the Venice celebration this weekend. A slip, as Savannah said, “it’s all the good words.”
Indeed, the design process for her younger sibling back in 2018 was easy: “Sienna is one in a million and the golden dress is a perfect extension of the bright soul that she is.” Not all wedding guests have slips and compliments on tap, but they do have the right to feeling like themselves.