For several years, Meghan has appeared to embrace the trappings of her status. Her taste for conspicuous consumption has been evident in the diamonds, gold accessories, Cartier watch and other luxury items associated with her public image.
Even everyday products such as jam and tea have been presented as premium offerings, with ornate packaging and exceptionally high price tags helping to create an air of exclusivity.
The chocolates included in her notoriously expensive As Ever advent calendar, launched last week, cost almost £6 apiece. Each one is finished with gold lettering said to be based on Meghan’s own handwriting.
Yet photographs showing Meghan outside Claridge’s in Mayfair on Wednesday — wearing £1,700 white trousers and carrying a Chanel handbag worth more than £5,000 — emerged as friends briefed that the Duchess of Sussex is now trying to project a more ‘humble’ image.
It is not necessarily an impression that is immediately apparent.
“She is very conscious of how she wants pictures to land, which is why you have barely seen her,” one friend said.
“She has honestly been trying to keep a low profile. Of course, if you meet someone at Claridge’s, people will notice. But look at how quiet she has been on social media and how little she has been out.”
For someone described by her spokesman as a ‘public figure’, Meghan has indeed made relatively few appearances since she and Prince Harry arrived in the UK by private jet on August 26.
Meghan and Malala were spotted in London yesterday after the Duchess of Sussex returned to the UK
The Duchess of Sussex and the Nobel Peace Prize winner first met during the Covid pandemic, six years ago
Now, however, she has been seen alongside Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, one of the world’s most prominent advocates for education and philanthropy.
Malala was 15 when she was shot in the head by the Taliban in Pakistan in 2012 after campaigning for girls’ education. She has since become a leading force in international charity work.
The two women first met during the Covid pandemic, when Meghan joined other well-known figures in supporting a 2020 campaign for female education. It became one of several prominent connections Meghan has made with influential women over the years.
Among them was television titan Oprah Winfrey, who attended Meghan and Harry’s 2018 wedding despite having reportedly never met the couple before the ceremony. Human rights lawyer Amal Clooney, the wife of Hollywood actor George Clooney, was also among the guests at St George’s Chapel, although it was unclear whether the two women had previously known each other. Sources have since indicated that neither Oprah nor Amal is now in contact with Meghan.
Meghan also entered the orbit of feminist icon Gloria Steinem. Following Steinem’s death last month, the duchess shared a tribute featuring three photographs of the pair together.
Other women once associated with Meghan, including philanthropist Nicole Avant, the wife of Netflix chief executive Ted Sarandos, and designer Tracy James, who is married to former Paramount boss Brian Robbins, also appear to have grown more distant.
Whether the relationship with Malala develops further remains to be seen. The 29-year-old appeared noticeably uncomfortable as she stood alongside Meghan on the pavements of Mayfair.
Malala, who is married and lives in Birmingham, runs the Malala Fund and continues to campaign for girls’ access to education around the world. The pair’s meeting at Claridge’s, where they had afternoon tea costing £95 per person, has not been mentioned on Meghan’s social media accounts. A source close to the duchess said it was simply a private meeting and did not require a public announcement.
The meeting at Claridge’s, where the pair had a £95-a-head afternoon tea, has not been shared by Meghan on social media
There have nevertheless been signs that Meghan is attempting to maintain a lower profile since returning to England. She and Harry were photographed together for the first time last week as they entered a Cotswolds pub, five weeks after their private jet landed in Birmingham.
Meghan has made a smattering of Instagram posts: one, on September 14, showed the Sussexes settling into their rural life, with the children in wellies and a snap of a blazing fire, plus the family fishing at a lake.
A friend said: ‘They are all really happy with how things are going, with the children at school, with where they are living, and with being in Britain. The place where they are staying is perfectly private and they couldn’t be happier with that. Things are going well with Harry’s family as well, but nothing more to be said there.
‘They are optimistic that there will be a revision of their security soon. It’s all good. Both Harry and Meghan are really delighted with the return.’
The friend adds: ‘The relocation to the UK is being served with a dose of humble pie though. There are genuine concerns from them both about how they are being received, how they want what they are doing to land.
‘They have been thinking about it and being very deliberate. They think that if they start posting stuff on Instagram it will land badly. It is part of a thought-out plan to keep their heads down between now and Christmas, when they will go back to California for the holidays. They don’t want to shove themselves down people’s throats.’
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Some self-awareness of the couple’s deep unpopularity seems like a good place to start. Approval ratings have plummeted since their Windsor wedding.
Harry’s memoir Spare, their Oprah interview and the wholesale trashing of the Royal Family and the ‘institution’ in the hit Netflix docu-series Harry & Meghan have turned many against the couple. If they really have arrived seeking peace and reconciliation as their friends say (plus an English schooling experience for children Archie and Lili), then a dose of quiet humility – and a dose of quiet, full stop – would appear reasonable.
At the children’s school, Meghan, 45, has been making friends with other parents. There are apparently some plans for a big Thanksgiving lunch with other American mothers at the children’s school at the end of November – there is certainly a big contingent of US expats locally. This, again, will be kept private.
Meghan needs all the support and good PR she can get. The couple left the UK in order to carve out a ‘progressive new role’ in 2020, leaving them free to earn their own money.
However, their Netflix and Spotify deals have come to an end and their Archewell charity essentially closed.
As revealed in this paper in August, Meghan’s keeping up her promotion of her As Ever lifestyle brand, which is not on sale outside the US.
Apparently, there is some ‘tacit acceptance’ that they need to earn a living, and that this can be done more or less within the Sandringham agreement drawn up after they quit the UK, as long as the commercial activity is outside the UK.
Last week, she announced her new festive range, and opened pre-orders for a £112 chocolate advent calendar that is only available to buy in the US.
The calendar – ‘inspired by her Montecito home and garden’ – features a festive illustration of the £11million mansion she and Harry called home for six years.
Prince Harry meanwhile has undertaken a number of charitable engagements, including appearing at a benefit for Ukraine and at the Invictus Spirit awards, without Meghan.
Yesterday, he released a video about grief for the charity Scotty’s Little Soldiers, of which he is a patron. It was filmed over the summer, in California.
Yet the Sussexes might not be as settled in the UK as they appear.
Sources say that it is ‘likely’ that Harry will quit the country (again) if he doesn’t get the improved taxpayer-funded security which he has been demanding for years.
Harry’s belief, apparently, is that his case is unimpeachably strong in terms both of need and entitlement and so he thinks he will get it.
I’m told: ‘He is a target not because of a lifestyle choice he made but because of who he was when he was born.’
However, the friend adds: ‘If he doesn’t get it [police security] then yes I do believe he will go back to Montecito for good and that could be as soon as half-term.’
In which case, this week’s surprising tete-a-tete in Mayfair may be Meghan’s last visit to Claridge’s for some time.
FASHION VERDICT: She’s the duchess of stealth-wealth style
On an autumn day in Mayfair, the young woman who survived an attack by the Taliban and the duchess who survived her stint as a working member of the Royal Family looked very much in sync: even their clothing – smart trousers and tailoring in browns and creams – seemed to be co-ordinated.
These days, Meghan Markle combines her philanthropic work with growing her lifestyle brand As Ever and has positioned herself as a fashion influencer who may yet design her own luxury clothing range.
Only a few days ago she launched an As Ever advent calendar costing £112 on Instagram, wearing an ivory cashmere sweater, Argent olive green bias cut silk skirt, blush Aquazzura ballet pumps and jewellery, the total value of which was estimated at £75,000.
Yesterday, Meghan dressed in similarly stealth-wealth style, pairing a Crew cashmere sweater in ‘wheat’ by Los Angeles-based luxury label Co Collections (£630) with silky fluid ivory wide-leg ‘Masina’ trousers by Ralph Lauren (£1,700) with Saint Laurent ivory and tan ‘Chris’ loafers (£795) and a toffee brown draped ‘Maxime’ cape coat by Tove costing £1,695.
Including the jewellery – her necklace alone, a Lovers Duet Diamond and Emerald Chain necklace by Logan Hollowell retails at £16,262 – and her Chanel handbag, likely to cost upwards of £5,000, yesterday’s outfit added up to a cool £26,082.
You wouldn’t expect Malala, the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize, to have the same interest in fashion, but she has hired a stylist in the past – Denna Giannini – for special occasions such as the British GQ Heroes Awards, and she knows how to make an entrance.
Yesterday, she wore a pair of brown-and-beige striped flared trousers with a tailored beige blazer and pointy-toed brown heels and looked on point for autumn. Ivory has become Meghan’s year-round signature, brown and beige are the new black for autumn: who’s to say fashion wasn’t a point of discussion for the duo on Wednesday, too?
SHANE WATSON