Meghan: A Hollywood Princess(66)
This total, head-to-foot commercialization of a royal princess is a far cry from the days when a bored Buckingham Palace press officer would grudgingly hand out a piece of paper describing what the Princess of Wales was wearing that day—and if you were lucky, it included the name of the designer. During the 1980s, Diana rarely wore High Street, preferring designers like Arabella Pollen; Victor Edelstein, who made the famous dress Diana wore when she danced with John Travolta; and later, in her years of independence, the unfussy creations of Catherine Walker. When she did occasionally step out in a High Street brand, such as an elephant-themed ensemble from the upmarket German fashion chain Escada, she faced criticism from the fashion elite.
Even if online shopping had been available in the Diana years, the cost and exclusivity of her clothing would have prevented her adoring female fans from dressing like the late princess. Of course, for years copies of royal dresses have been run up cheaply and quickly. When Wallis Simpson was married in June 1937, for example, she was furious to learn that her carefully crafted wedding dress, by the American designer Mainbocher, was copied and on sale within hours of the wedding pictures being released. In those days cheap was a relative term, and even the designer knock-offs were beyond most budgets.
In her own quiet way Kate Middleton began the fashion revolution in the House of Windsor by deliberately wearing accessible and affordable clothes, mixing these with high-end designer labels. The Reiss brand, for example, was a regular staple. She was the first proletarian princess, the palace and the High Street working in harmony, her styles and choices imitated from Maidenhead to Madison Avenue. “Catherine is stylish in affordable clothes and accessories,” noted Reiss brand director Andy Rogers.
Meghan has taken it a stage further, using the semiology of fashion to focus on little-known ethical brands. It was an interest she had long before she met Prince Harry. At the 2014 One Young World conference, for example, Meghan made a point of befriending Ali Hewson, wife of U2’s Bono, because she wanted to learn more about her ethical clothing line and makeup lines, Edun and Nude.
Ironically, when Meghan did dress like a princess, wearing a ￡56,000 gown by London-based Ralph & Russo for her formal engagement portraits, she was criticized for her extravagance. First in line was her half sister Samantha, who wondered how she could spend so much on a dress when her father, Tom Senior, was supposedly in need of a financial helping hand. Meghan was discovering, as Diana and Kate had before her, that whatever you choose to wear, someone always has a better idea. The stunning black-and-white photographs taken at Frogmore House, the royal burial ground inside Windsor Castle, by fashion photographer Alexi Lubomirski were a reminder of the charm and appeal exerted by this couple. “Meghan’s sheer glamour marries Hollywood to the House of Windsor,” declared the normally sober London Times. As Lubomirski commented: “I cannot help but smile when I look at the photos that we took of them, such was their happiness together.”
While the royal family were not manning the checkout tills, they had approved the sale, at gift shops in Kensington Palace, Sandringham, and Buckingham Palace, of mugs, gold-plated spoons, bookmarks, notepads, and postcards all adorned with the smiling image of Meghan and Harry. When about one thousand ￡20 ($27) ceramic mugs commemorating the engagement went on sale following the announcement, they were sold out within twenty-four hours. Every hotel and guest house in the vicinity of Windsor Castle was booked long before the May wedding, while the English tourism board was expecting a huge influx of visitors—around 350,000 extra tourists came to Britain during the royal wedding of William and Catherine. If visitors could not get a decent view of the happy couple, there were plenty of professional Harry and Meghan lookalikes to take their place, for a fee.
As for other happy couples, online wedding planner Bridebook reported that inquiries for castles and honeymoons in Botswana had risen dramatically, while sales of diamond engagement rings à la Markle had gone up by a third. Bridebook chief executive Hamish Shephard commented: “Meghan and Harry’s nuptials will boost both the wedding industry and the British economy. We’re expecting a huge increase.”
Overall, the London Times reckoned that the royal family would contribute ￡1.8 billion ($2.44 billion) to the British economy during 2018. Of that total, valuation consultancy Brand Finance estimated that the royal wedding could be worth ￡1 billion ($1.4 billion) to the economy and, post-Brexit, help improve Britain’s relationship with the United States. The chief executive of Brand Finance, David Haigh, said: “The last royal wedding had an electrifying effect on people’s attitude to the monarchy and Britain, and this will impact even more because it has taken things to a global level with Harry marrying a glamorous American.”
Away from these frothy financial figures, on December 1, a week after the engagement announcement, Meghan had her first introduction to her new world when she traveled to Nottingham, meeting and greeting members of the public during an official royal engagement. It was just like walking along the red carpet, except colder, wetter, and with no red carpet.
Unlike Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge, whose first engagement was christening an offshore lifeboat at a modest ceremony in Anglesey, North Wales, Meghan was thrown in at the deep end, thousands of people waiting for hours under chilly leaden skies for a glimpse of the Hollywood princess. Though the focus was on a visit to a center linked to the World AIDS Day charity, everyone wanted to see the bride-to-be. She looked a tad nervous, as well she might, and Harry frequently put his arm around her and whispered encouragement in her ear. Introducing herself as Meghan, she quickly got used to the English default conversation, chatting about the weather. (In LA it’s the freeway traffic.) She thanked people for waiting in the cold, accepted sweets, hugs, kisses, comparisons to Princess Diana, and flowers, but declined selfies, even though if there were an Olympics for selfies, Meghan would be a gold medalist—the royal bride-in-waiting was learning fast.