The label you’ve never heard of that dresses Meghan AND Kate
Wearing an oversized blazer buttoned low across her bare chest, tailored trousers and spiked stiletto heels, the woman in the photograph is utterly captivating.
She rests a hand on her décolletage as a suggestive smile plays across her lips. Her hair is tousled and brown; kohl-rimmed eyes stare defiantly into the lens.
That woman is Meghan Markle, and though readers of the October 2015 edition of The Bay St Bull, a lifestyle magazine published in Toronto, Canada, on whose front cover she appeared, didn’t know it at the time, she would, in little under three years, go on to marry a Prince.
When andrea Lenczner and Christie Smythe saw the images of the actress in the magazine, they were even more transfixed than most.
‘“That’s our blazer!” i remember yelling to Christie. “She’s wearing our blazer!”’ recalls andrea, 46, a soft-spoken Toronto native and co-founder of womenswear brand Smythe. ‘it was a complete surprise to us to see Meghan in our jacket.
‘She portrayed it exactly as we had imagined. it’s manly — there’s very little shaping in it — but she pulled it off with such elegance and femininity. By rolling up the sleeves and pairing it with big hair and smoky eyes, she made the whole look spectacular. it was very sexy. Very Meghan.’
The appearance of that £340 jacket in the magazine, and Meghan’s subsequent love affair with Smythe clothing, would transform the label’s fortunes.
So much so, in fact, that Smythe, previously available only to Canadian and american shoppers, will soon be on sale in this country, with upmarket department store Harvey nichols stocking some of Meghan’s favourite pieces from the range later this month.
if ever there was proof of the so-called ‘Meghan effect’, this is surely it.
Fast-forward three years from her first endorsement and she is no longer an actress but a Duchess, with the fashion clout that comes with it. every outfit she wears sells out in an instant, giving her the power to send sales soaring and help brands rack up lucrative profits.
Though she has worn several Smythe garments over the years — from a woollen jumper out shopping in London to a suede jacket while dashing to and from a yoga class — andrea and Christie first benefited from the Markle Sparkle when she donned their £760 wool ‘Brando’ coat for a walkabout with Harry in Brixton, south London, in January this year.
‘She’s had the coat for years,’ Christie, 45, tells me, as the pair sit side by side in their bright workshop in the trendy West Queen West district of Toronto. ‘She first wore it on the set of Suits, in 2016, dressed down with a baseball cap, jeans and loafers. nobody took much notice.’
AnD then, when she was coming over to the UK to live with Harry, she packed her coat and brought it with her, just like any normal woman would. ‘When she wore it in London, it sold out in two colours before the end of the day,’ says Christie.
‘We reissued it straight away. We were getting online orders from all over the world — asia, South america, europe. it was brilliant.’
Meghan’s high-profile patronage came again in april, when she wore their grey military ‘Pagoda’ coat (£740, pictured) to a poignant dawn service commemorating anzac Day in London. as before, the coat, which isn’t officially available to customers until October — sold out in pre-order sales.
‘Meghan is a classic dresser,’ says andrea. ‘She’s contemporary; she knows what suits her. She draws a lot of attention to her waist, so our belted and buttoned styles suit her. They’re the sort of garments she can adapt to her new life: both smart and casual.’
andrea, a mother of three, and Christie, a mother of one, met at school and set up their label in 2004, having found themselves both working in fashion (andrea at Holt renfrew, a high-end department store and sister shop to Selfridges; Christie at gap), but fed up with conventional brands. at first, they focused on blazers, aimed at chic, working women seeking to bridge the gap between staid workwear and smart-casual.
‘They’re such an important part of how we both dress,’ explains andrea. ‘You can throw a great jacket on anything and cheat your way to looking put-together.’ Their ideal customer, they insist, is ‘not a type of person but a mindset: a woman who looks after herself and wants to reflect that in her clothing.’
‘She’s polished,’ Christie says. ‘She’s a girl who appreciates longevity and quality. She invests in her wardrobe. We try to make things for all occasions: business meetings, dinner with your husband or girlfriends, taking your kids somewhere, a weekend break to the country.’
inspiration comes from everywhere — vintage clothing, catwalks, films, travel and even nature. One of the duo’s biggest icons is Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, nineties ‘it’ girl and wife of John F Kennedy Jr, whose wedding dress Meghan once described as ‘everything goals’ and who died alongside her husband and sister when their plane crashed in 1999.
‘Carolyn loved wearing black and camel, so those colours appear a lot in our collection,’ andrea says.
Their first brush with royalty was, in fact, not Meghan but Kate, who wore the aptly-named Smythe ‘Duchess’ blazer (£525, pictured, part of the new Harvey nichols range) back in 2011. She’s worn the single-button woollen jacket several times since, including on the 2016 royal tour to Canada.
‘i don’t think we were aware how closely followed Kate’s style was at the time,’ Christie admits. ‘no one knew what the “Kate effect” was. We were quite overwhelmed. But it helped prepare us for Meghan wearing our clothes. it meant we could be savvier this time around.’
Smythe’s wool is sourced from La Paz, the Bolivian capital, where they support local farmers and craftswomen by helping them become financially independent.
They have fabric mills in italy and the remainder of their manufacturing is done in Canada.
Both are still intimately involved in the design process: their studio wall is an eye-catching patchwork of fabric samples, drawings and pages ripped from magazines.
PHOTOgraPHS the fans, and brand’s Margot from Sienna other robbie feature Miller a-list to Beyoncé and gigi Hadid.
They don’t know how Meghan came across their clothes — they have a stylist to thank for that first editorial shoot — but believe her love of the brand is down to her desire to support labels from Canada, a country that was her adopted home for five years.
‘Canadians are so proud,’ andrea says. ‘She is a role model in so many different ways, not least her fashion. and the fact she’s bringing these little-known Canadian labels into the spotlight with her is incredibly important to us.
‘We know Meghan has a few other pieces of ours and we hope it will be a lasting relationship.’
Harvey NicHols will stock key pieces from smythe’s autumn collections from later this month.