Duchess of Sussex: I use my global spotlight to help sell clothes

Meghan says she uses outfit choices at public events to bring attention to certain brands and designers she favours

The Duchess of Sussex has said she uses her global spotlight to help sell clothes.
She revealed that she uses her outfit choices at public events to bring attention to certain brands and designers she favours.
Speaking to The New York Times, the 43-year-old said: “Times where I know there is a global spotlight, and attention will be given to each detail of what I may or may not be wearing, then I support designers that I have really great friendships with, and smaller, up-and-coming brands that haven’t gotten the attention that they should be getting.
“That’s one of the most powerful things that I’m able to do, and that’s simply wearing, like, an earring.”
It comes as the Duchess revealed she continues to source and invest in female-led brands to expand her own portfolio, including Cesta Collective, a basket bag company.
After she was photographed wearing a bag made by the brand to a dinner with Gwyneth Paltrow and Cameron Diaz last summer, Cesta Collective had more sales in one day than it had ever experienced.
The company, which specialises in handwoven bags made by a collective of women in Rwanda, was discovered by the Duchess while she was online shopping.
“I spend a lot of time just Googling, looking for brands,” she said. “When people are online looking for things or reading things, I’m trying to find great new designers, especially in different territories.”
The Duchess explained she had begun to appreciate her quasi-ambassadorial role for these brands when she learned of the boost in sales she had caused for Strathberry, a Scottish company, after a public appearance wearing one of its handbags in 2017.
After the event, the Duchess’s first royal engagement with the Duke, the founder of the company said the bag she had chosen sold out online in 11 minutes after she was pictured wearing it.
The boost – which has been called the “Meghan effect” – that she gave to the brand “changed everything in terms of how I then looked at putting an outfit together”, she explained.
Her initial investments into brands began during the pandemic lockdowns. The first one she selected was Clevr Blends, which offers instant latte blends made with adaptogens, mushrooms and probiotics.
In December 2020, after investing in the Californian “wellness lattes” start-up, the Duchess persuaded Oprah Winfrey to promote the product. The broadcaster filmed herself making her “new favourite” superlatte after her “neighbour ‘M’” sent her “a basket of deliciousness!”
Four years on, there are now between five and 10 brands in the Duchess’s portfolio, which she sees as an accompaniment to American Riviera Orchard, her own new lifestyle brand.
She described the venture capital initiative as “dolphin tank,” as opposed to the popular American business reality television series Shark Tank, telling The New York Times that “investing in them has helped me line up for this chapter where I’m investing in myself”.
In Tom Bower’s book, House of the Beckhams, it is claimed that the Duchess asked Victoria Beckham for free bags and clothes from her clothing brand. The apparent request is said to have been blocked by the palace for being against the rules.
Then, on Christmas day in 2018, it was rumoured she had donned $11,000 worth of clothing from Beckham’s label for a walkabout with the Prince and Princess of Wales.
And in 2021, The Sun reported royal aides had told the former Suits actress that, while it was acceptable for actresses to keep and accept free clothes, it was against royal protocol.
A source said at the time: “As an actress it was perfectly acceptable to take freebies sent by fashion chains and designer labels. But Meghan had to be told it was not the done thing when you are a member of the royal family.”
In Tina Brown’s Palace Papers, she claims the Duchess had “won a reputation amongst the marketers of luxury brands of being warmly interested in receiving bags of designer swag” when her blog The Tig was at its most successful, a habit that was hard to break when she married into the royal family.
In the Duke’s book Spare, he wrote: “[Meghan] shared all the freebies she received, clothes and perfumes and makeup, with all the women in the office.”