Kate Middleton's fashion background helpful

Kate Middleton's fashion background will be invaluable as she chooses her wedding dress according to Princess Diana's wedding dress designer.

The future princess- who will marry Britain's Prince William at Westminster Abbey on April 29 - spent time working for fashion retailer Jigsaw as a junior accessories buyer and Elizabeth Emanuel thinks Kate will be much more style savvy than Diana was when choosing her own wedding gown.

The British designer - who created Diana's lavish dress for her nuptials to Prince Charles - said: "With Diana she was very young when we were introduced to her and fashion was not one of her big interests so she didn't really have her own sense of style.

"But Kate Middleton does. She's worked in fashion. She knows what suits her so she's probably got a very firm idea of what kind of dress she wants."

Kate's dress has been the subject of much speculation as she has so far refused to name the designer and Elizabeth explained she resorted to laying false clues when making Diana's gown and even designed a spare dress.

She said: "There was so much media interest, all wanting to know what the dress was going to look like and of course we couldn't say anything.

"We used to leave bits of different coloured threads and things to put them on the wrong track and we had to put blinds up so that people couldn't peer through the windows. And we even had a spare dress hanging up just in case somebody did discover the secret."