Meghan the working mum launches her own fashion line
4 months after having Archie, she links with big stores to launch charity fashion line
her £109 John Lewis tote bag sold out before she even reached the launch event – and was last night being hawked on eBay for almost three times its ticket price. even her £19.50 Marks and Spencer shift dress was changing hands for £50 online.
So it is fair to say the Duchess of Sussex’s first foray into Britain’s fashion scene was something of a royal success.
returning to official duties just four months after going on maternity leave, Meghan meant business yesterday as she launched a ‘capsule’ clothing collection designed to help get women back into work.
The project was a collaboration with the charity Smart Works, of which she is patron, which provides vulnerable, unemployed women with outfits and job mentoring.
The ‘Smart Set’ collection is made up of five pieces – a jacket and trousers, dress, shirt and bag ranging from £19.50 to £199 – sold at retailers M&S, John Lewis, Jigsaw and Misha Nonoo, a designer and friend of the duchess.
For every item bought by a customer, one will be donated by the stores to the Smart Works charity, which will then give it to a woman getting back into the workplace. The collection will be available for two weeks. Speaking at the launch on the roof terrace of John Lewis’s flagship Oxford Street store, Meghan, 38, said she wanted to encourage women to help each other.
The former Suits actress wore the range’s £125 white shirt and £120 trousers, styled with a brown belt and heels.
Aides said she has bought all five items from the collection, and is expected to showcase them during her upcoming tour of southern Africa.
The American duchess said: ‘When I first moved to the UK it was incredibly important for me to connect with people on the ground doing really important work. And one of the places I went to very early on was Smart Works.
‘There were a lot of donations but not necessarily the things women needed to have. The next time I went, there was a rack of about 40 or 50 lilac-coloured blazers.
‘Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a great blazer. And I’m sure for someone it’s exactly what she wants to be wearing.
‘But for most women, when you’ve got a job interview, you want to be looking your very best and feel confident and you want to be wearing a piece of clothing that makes you feel that way. Not the leftovers that didn’t sell at the end of the season. I kept thinking about it as I went home and it didn’t track for me. And I said “we’ve got to do something to try and change this”.’
She said she approached the three British firms because they are ‘traditional and quintessentially British brands that I’ve become introduced to since I moved here,’ adding that ‘for me they resonated and I knew resonated with the Smart Works customer’.
She added: ‘This is the kind of work that I’ve been doing for a really long time, and to be able to do it here in my new home in the UK means quite a bit to me. It’s also the same kind of work that my husband and I will continue doing. As women, it is 100 per cent our responsibility, I think, to support and uplift each other.’
Meghan delightedly revealed she had learned the tote bag sold out on her way to the event and chatted intently with six clients who had been helped by the charity and were modelling the collection.
‘I’m so proud of you all,’ the duchess told them.
Before leaving, she said she had to get back to baby Archie because it was ‘feed time’.
Speaking afterwards, Miss Nonoo said she had been working with the duchess on the line since the start of the year after being asked to contribute the ‘perfect’ white shirt.
She said: ‘She came up with the idea, we started speaking and I didn’t have to think twice. It was just a 100 per cent, resounding yes.’
Speaking about her friend, she said: ‘She is so much about making other women feel great about themselves.
‘The duchess is very hardworking and she genuinely gets her hands dirty and gets stuck in there.’
The clothes come in sizes six to 24. It is hoped the project will provide enough workwear for Smart Works clients in the UK for a year.
It is not Meghan’s first foray into fashion, having launched a range with a local department store when working as an actress in Canada.
‘We need to support and uplift each other’
‘Means quite a bit to me’