As Kate Middleton Recuperates With Garbo-Like Mystique, Meghan Markle Launches a Well-Timed New Offensive: Selling Jam

Brace yourselves, Americans — the countdown has begun to the virtual ribbon-cutting of an eclectic online emporium spearheaded by the embattled Duchess of Sussex — also known as the former actress Meghan Markle. Soon customers will be able to browse and peruse a range of dainty things, some edible and most frivolous, and all custom curated by Ms. Sussex, née Markle. Some are already calling the former “Suits” actress’s new lifestyle brand “The Tig” 2.0, that being a reference to an obscure lifestyle blog she once produced before her ascent to the peerage. Yet the name of the new venture, unveiled via a teaser video on Instagram, is markedly less original: branded “American Riviera Orchard,” it partially purloins the well-known moniker of the famously sunny Santa Barbara coast: the “American Riviera.”Meghan, Duchess of Sussex walks onstage during the Breaking Barriers, Shaping Narratives: How Women Lead On and Off the Screen panel during the 2024 SXSW Conference and Festival at Austin Convention Center on March 08, 2024 at Austin, Texas. Astrida Valigorsky/Getty ImagesSo iconic is that touristic designation, which includes ultra-rich Montecito, where the Sussexes have a multimillion-dollar mansion, that it has been trademarked — but Ms. Markle appears, for now, to have sidestepped any legal trespass by affixing the word “orchard” to her new company’s name. The new project is said to have been in the works for more than a year — and will reportedly purvey “all things close to her heart.”The company’s logo, as seen on its elusive website. Courtesy American Riviera OrchardAccording to a trademark filing obtained by the New York Post, American Riviera Orchard will sell “a wide range of home goods including edible treats like jellies, jams and spreads and tableware staples such as cutlery, table linens and drinkware.” American Riviera Orchard will also reportedly sell something that no aspiring princess can live without: cookbooks. That would appear to differentiate the offerings, to a degree, from competing sites such as Gwyneth Paltrow’s popular Goop.com (though Ms. Paltrow herself is certainly not above selling multiple, self-branded cookbooks).Meghan, Duchess of Sussex attends Invictus Games Vancouver Whistlers 2025’s One Year To Go Winter Training Camp on February 14, 2024 at Whistler, British Columbia. Andrew Chin/Getty ImagesThe Instagram account bears the same name. The initial nine posts feature a mosaic of the brand’s logo in gold lettering. Some sources report that the calligraphy, done in the style of wedding invitation, is a reference to freelance work Ms. Markle did in the halcyon days before she married into British royalty. However, she is also a known habitué of Pierre La Fond, a Montecito boutique and café renowned for its style of restrained elegance — the total opposite of Hollywood glitziness. The doctored photo of the princess of Wales. A forensic analysis appears to show the photo is a composite. Kensington PalaceThe business is seemingly to be based at Montecito, where Meghan has carved out a new and somewhat isolated life with her husband, Prince Harry and their two young children, Archie and Lilibet. And the rollout comes just as Meghan’s sister-in-law, Catherine the Princess of Wales, with whom she’s clashed over everything from lip balm to bridesmaids’ dresses, is mired in a ballooning scandal over her health and a doctored photo.Meghan was seen in a kitchen as part of an Instagram story promotion for her new venture. InstagramWas the subtle announcement of the new venture just coincidence? Probably not. Royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliam tells the Daily Mail:“The Sussexes don’t do anything by accident, and timing is often absolutely crucial. They just reminded us that they may have more tricks up their sleeve than some of us thought. For years they have been unpredictable, but they have been predictable in one sense and that is the unerring timing when they think it is beneficial to get information out.”Indeed, the launch came just minutes before Meghan’s brother-in-law Prince William’s appearance at the Diana Award event at London’s Science Museum. Prince Harry made an awkwardly virtual appearance at that event named in honor of the brothers’ late mother, but he did so only after Prince William had made his exit. The rift between the brothers – in which Meghan has played a central part – remains a chasm.In the meantime, Prince William made a reference to the artistic side of his wife, the former Kate Middleton, now Princess Catherine, at an event at a London community center this week. The Princess of Wales is still mysteriously recovering from what the palace claimed was “abdominal surgery,” and avoiding the public eye, in the wake of that scandal over a photo of her with her three children that she admitted to digitally editing herself. Princesses Catherine and Meghan, in happier times. Clive Mason/Getty ImagesCould Meghan, after a series of embarrassing setbacks in her quest for fame and status in Southern California, see, in Catherine’s struggles, an opening? Not only is the timing of the news of the duchess’s new retail “orchard” likely deliberate — because nature and marketing whizzes alike abhor a vacuum — the entire style is, too. In a short promotional video for the business released on her “Instagram stories,” the duchess is seen (at her house?) arranging flowers in a vase, cooking up something – or pretending to – in a homey kitchen, and posing in a black dress. It is vaguely reminiscent of the carefree potterings of an imagined Disney princess, or an early 1980s Stevie Nicks video set. Yet the acoustic overlay has to do with neither Ms. Nicks or the British pop music canon, for that matter. The Duchess, whose mother Doria Ragland is Black and whose estranged father is white, selected “I Wish You Love” by jazz crooner Nancy Wilson, who is Black. In any case, we appear to be witnessing the birth, or rebirth, of a saleswoman — and a savvy one at that.

As Kate Middleton Recuperates With Garbo-Like Mystique, Meghan Markle Launches a Well-Timed New Offensive: Selling Jam

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