Meet the woman who oversaw creation of Kate Middleton's wedding dress with colourful new role in Yorkshire

Now Dr Susan Kay-Williams’s varied CV has a colourful new entry – quite literally. She has been named the new president of the Bradford-based Society of Dyers and Colourists after being a fellow of the organisation since 2015.

The society, founded in 1884, provides colour education, offering a range of courses and qualifications.

The beginning of her one-year tenure as president comes as she prepares for her forthcoming retirement as chief executive of the Royal School of Needlework, a role she has held since 2007.

Dr Kay-Williams says of her career: “I don’t believe in a straight-line progression. It is about taking the skill set you have in one place then looking at how that can be used in the next.”

Growing up in Lancashire, her first job in the 1970s was in the ticket office of Blackpool Opera House before she went to do an English and American literature degree in Cardiff, followed by a Masters in Shakespeare studies.

She ended up as a box office manager in Slough then moved into marketing for a variety of arts and non-profit organisations.

Her career progressed to the point where she became head of marketing for what was then called the Guide Association in the late 1990s. Dr Kay-Williams says that as an ex-Brownie and Guide herself, it was a dream role.

At the time there was no collective list of holders of Queen’s Guide awards – the highest award in guiding (and one she had held herself). A publicity campaign resulted in an incredible 20,000 award-holders coming forward.

“We had events all over the country to bring people together and had stories like three generations of the same family, all of whom had been Queen’s Guides. It meant we could talk to them about potentially coming back and volunteering for us.”

As well as putting on pop concerts for Guides, she has also helped bring through a name change to Girlguiding UK, which was in part an attempt to end frequent confusion between that organisation and The Guide Dogs for the Blind Association.

She adds: “It was much more inclusive of both the girls and the leaders because the leaders are literally guiding the girls.

"We changed the strapline to ‘Surprise Yourself’ to say what you get out of this will be more than you put it.

“It was taken on board pretty quickly. We were Girlguiding UK as a whole but you could be Girlguiding Yorkshire, Girlguiding Lancashire or Girlguiding Heckmondwike, to add your local bit in.”

She moved on to to become the chief executive of what was then called the Henry Doubleday Research Association and was again involved in the organisation changing its name, this time to Garden Organic.

Dr Kay-Williams said the simplified name change for the organisation, which promotes organic gardening, was popular with the public but did face some internal resistance.

After deciding to leave the organisation in 2007 for a variety of reasons, including the fact she was living away from her husband and home to do the job, she saw an advert for the Royal School of Needlework post.

She said: “I’ve always been interested in decorative arts. I’m not a great embroiderer myself but I liked the look of it.

“When I read the job description, it was clear they didn’t need another embroiderer, they needed someone with non-profit management experience, which I had.”

In 2011 she oversaw her RSN team working on a top-secret project to create the wedding dress for Catherine Middleton.

Dr Kay-Williams says subsequent media reports that the team didn’t know whose dress they were working on were “absolute nonsense” but they did have to sign non-disclosure agreements.

“We don’t blab – we know when things are confidential and we breed that in our students as well.

“To limit knowledge, we worked on panels but didn’t know what the overall design was. We were applying lace motifs, which had come from a variety of different suppliers so no one supplier could immediately reproduce it. We had a whole team working on it and different people coming in at different times.

"When a big job like that comes in my role is about keeping the whole team going – even to the point of helping them to have a meal or make sure they are having a break.”

She was invited to the wedding in Westminster Abbey and said it was an amazing experience to see Kate coming down the aisle in the dress.

“It was just fantastic to see and I had to ask my colleague what flowers she had because I was so focused on the dress I hadn’t looked.”

The now Princess of Wales subsequently visited the RSN team privately to thank them for their work on her dress.

Dr Kay-Williams says that more recently the RSN was involved in creating regalia for the Coronation, including the King and Queen’s Robes of State.

She is now retiring from the RSN at the end of August and felt the time was right that she could take on a new responsibility with the Society of Dyers and Colourists.

A key aim in her year as president is to introduce a new schools programme. She says a scheme is in the early stages of design but will take some inspiration from a similar scheme run by the RSN called Stitch a Selfie, to encourage more young people to try embroidery.

"We want to create a kit that will help classes to think about colour. Stitch a Selfie was about getting children off their phones and working with a needle and thread and it has been incredibly successful.

"We want to do something similar that can be used in textile classes or art and design or after-school clubs.

“It is still in the development phase but we want to help children think about colour differently and realise it is made.”