Meghan Markle brought her public image full circle yesterday when she appeared in jeans and a chic white linen shirt for the online announcement of her re-branded lifestyle company, As Ever. The look was a clear nod to her first-ever appearance in public alongside her now husband, Prince Harry, at the 2017 Invictus Games, where she wore faded ripped jeans and a white shirt. Meghan has been known to telegraph messages through fashion, starting with that shirt, by her pal Misha Nonoo, called “The Boyfriend Shirt,” which was a fun kind of secret code.
In the brand announcement video, bathed in California sunlight, the Duchess of Sussex appeared to be in natural makeup and a playful mood. When a cat ran across the screen, she ad-libbed: “The cat is out of the bag!” The cat in question was the new name for the line formerly known as American Riviera Orchard, now grown into a fully-formed business partnership with Netflix – where she is also releasing her lifestyle inspo show, With Love, Meghan. Both projects will launch simultaneously at the beginning of March.
Meghan is a digital native: she built up her lifestyle site The Tig from her trailer on the set of Suits in Toronto. In the weeks before her relationship with Harry was revealed, she had amassed more than a million followers for the account on Instagram – no small feat for a lifestyle blog. Many of her followers were young women who formed an impassioned and supportive community, another digital accomplishment that is hard to pull off. She is also quite good at nudge-wink messaging: think of the famous “bananas hugging” image she posted on The Tig back when Harry was still a closely guarded secret; Meghan repeated it years later at a British soup kitchen, showing how she understands how to use simple imagery that will go viral online.
Her new Instagram, TV show and brand all appear to be a return to content featuring hobbies she is passionate about –gardening, cooking, decorating and entertaining. She confirmed that the fruit preserves that made a splash, for better or for worse, when she sent out celebrity gift packages of them last year are still part of the plan, though the plan now sounds much bigger.
“I think we are all clear at this point that jam is my jam.”
With the way that celebrity lifestyle brands have been minting multi-millionaires – from Kim Kardashian’s US$4 billion shapewear empire Skims to Jessica Alba’s US$650 million clean cleaning supplier The Honest Company to Gwyneth Paltrow’s US$250 million haute fashion and beauty line Goop – this return to an earlier calling for Meghan may have successful legs, indeed.
Both With Love and As Ever are letter sign-offs, and since she relaunched her Instagram site @meghan she has been hinting at the new brand by ending her notes with the latter sentiment.
The trailer for her TV show looks highly polished; online she seems to have returned to a more DIY kind of vibe. It sounds like Prince Harry is the one filming her announcement and Princess Lilibet walks with her mom framed against the sentimental double palm trees on the property. It is a good way to add dimensionality to her new public persona.
This is Meghan, still Duchess of Sussex and still the mom of Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, who follow their father, fifth in line to the throne, as numbers six and seven on the royal succession top 10 list. But she is leaning in to her original identity as a laid-back California girl (Elton John famously sang Tiny Dancer at the couple’s wedding reception with the tie-in being the line “Blue jean baby, L.A. lady…”)
Authenticity is the key to brand success, say marketers, ad nauseum. This renewed identity is baked into Meghan, and she looks at home in her own skin within the content she is putting out. For make no mistake: she may also wear the hats of philanthropist and humanitarian and ex-working royal, but she is now in the full-time business of content creation with tie-in merch. American start-up culture, centred in Silicon Valley tech and Hollywood dreams is, we are told, a “move fast and break things” kind of energy. And hustle is what fuels the larger American identity. Meghan has always had gumption.
American Riviera Orchard was dropped, she said, because it limited her to products from Santa Barbara and environs. Her new brand name is not without its own immediate backlash, though it is chiefly contained to the tabloid press. The As Ever “coat of arms” logo, has stirred up feelings in the Spanish town of Porreres in Mallorca, which also features two birds flanking a palm tree. Then the Brooklyn-based, family-run vintage clothing brand As Ever – an indie cult fave of such influential fashion faces as former J.Crew creative director and current Real Housewife Jenna Lyons – reacted to Meghan’s business name online. Founder Mark Kolski clarified on Instagram that while the company does not own the trademark to the name (Meghan made it clear she was awarded rights in 2022), that they intend to keep doing business under the name as they had since the launch in 2017, and he thanked followers for the outpouring of support for the little label now up against the Netflix-backed Goliath.
But the knee-jerk tabloid hating on Meghan is really beyond stale. In the end, of all the various jobs that Harry and Meghan have tried on since they left working duties for the British Royal Family five years ago, this is now Meghan standing on her own and sharing her own vision of a happy life full of food, flowers, chickens and famous friends – alongside her husband and kids – nearly 9,000 k.m. from Buckingham Palace.
It’s a big leap, but Meghan hasn’t shied away from big leaps in the past. We have yet to see what the show and the goods on offer are, but it certainly sounds like she is thinking bigger than jam.
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Back in Business: Meghan Markle Launches New Lifestyle Brand Dubbed American Riviera Orchard
