How Steven Khalil brought glamour to brides the world over

In 2015 he added fragrance to his portfolio, and this year, he will stage an exhibition chronicling 30 years of his work. Details are still to be nutted out, but it will focus on Khalil’s best-known gowns, including those he showed at Paris Fashion Week in 2019.

Khalil says his longevity in the fickle fashion business is down to consistency. “It’s hard work, and just continuing to do your best,” he says of his success. In many ways, the work has become more difficult as he’s grown the business, he says. “In the early years, there was no social media. I had a smaller team. Most of what we did was bespoke gowns. There was less competition.”

Evolving the business into a global brand, now stocked everywhere from New York to Seoul, is more challenging, but has also allowed him to focus on the bigger picture. “I do want to step back a little,” he says. “I have a great team who understand the special relationship between client and designer, especially in bridal.”

Bridezillas? He hates the word. “Some clients are challenging, but I try to think, ‘What’s going on here?’ It’s a heightened time for her, she just wants everything to go well.”

The key here? “Everyone wants to feel they’ve been listened to,” he says.

As for the future, Khalil isn’t exactly “stepping back”. He is growing the business, with eight new stockists in the United States and more to come. He is passionate about bespoke manufacturing, pointing out that bridal is one of the last vestiges of made-to-measure for women. “It’s a dying art,” he says. “And it can be hard to attract staff sometimes because it’s harder to find skilled craftspeople. Those older generations are moving on and there is a dearth of young people moving into those roles.

“But we are passionate about what we do and we want to do it better, in a more elevated way, for even more people.”