Few women can move product like Meghan Markle. Last year, it was reported by Lyst that for every item the Duchess of Sussex wears, the brand sees a 200 percent spike in search the following week. (Those numbers were even higher on her wedding day: Givenchy saw a 61 percent increase, and Stella McCartney got a 3,000 percent surge in traffic.) There are entire blogs and Instagram accounts dedicated to finding out precisely which sweater or bag the Duchess is wearing, how much it costs, and where you can buy it—if it hasn’t already sold out, that is.
What would happen if that sweater or bag was also designed by Markle herself? Soon that will be a reality: In her guest-edited issue of British Vogue, which hit newsstands in the U.K. yesterday, Markle revealed that she’s launching a “workwear collection” with Marks & Spencer, John Lewis, and Jigsaw, with the help of her friend Misha Nonoo (who made the now-famous oversized button-down Markle wore for her first public appearance with Prince Harry in 2017.) If the concept of workwear sounds uninspired, it ties in nicely with the charity Markle has also partnered with: For each garment sold, another will be donated to Smart Works, which provides training and interview clothes for women who are re-entering the workforce.
Markle’s shared Instagram account with her husband, @sussexroyal, shared a few more details about the impetus behind the collection: “Throughout [Meghan’s] visits [to Smart Works] she noticed that while the donations [of clothing] were plentiful, they were also notably a combination of mismatched items and colors which weren’t always the right stylistic choices or sizes that didn’t necessarily ‘suit’ the job at hand: to make a woman feel confident and inspired as she walked into her job interview,” the post reads.
That Markle understands the importance of how clothing makes women feel, not just how it looks, is an important part of the story. What she hasn’t touched on (at least not yet) is how these clothes will be made, who is making them, and where. That’s only significant because Markle has become such a champion of sustainable fashion and works closely with her stylist, Jessica Mulroney, to create looks with an environmentally or socially conscious message. That button-down by Nonoo (coincidentally—or maybe not!—called “The Husband Shirt”) is produced “on-demand” in a move to reduce excess stock and fabric, for instance. Markle regularly wears pieces by sustainability-minded labels like Gabriela Hearst, Maggie Marilyn, Reformation, and Everlane (which made the jumpsuit she wears in her British Vogue shoot—somehow, it’s still in stock). Even the Stella McCartney dress she wore to her wedding reception was made from an eco-friendly blend of viscose and silk, and the Duchess has been spotted in McCartney’s vegan leather Stan Smiths, too.
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