Duchess of Sussex launches new venture
Meghan Markle unveils food-related lifestyle brand
If you’ve ever looked into your pantry and thought, “All that’s missing is a marmalade made by Meghan Markle,” the universe has heard your prayers and manifested the lifestyle brand of your dreams.
That’s right: The Duchess of Sussex is getting into business, launching her very own line of kitchen-adjacent products called American Riviera Orchard. It’s a name, we must note, that sounds like the result of a brainstorming word cloud at an ad agency aiming to capture the laid-back Cali chic that’s always been Meghan’s thing.
Meghan soft-launched the brand Thursday on Instagram, the first time she’s been active on the platform since she shut down her accounts prior to her marriage in 2018.
So far, the account has just nine posts, which come together to form a single image that looks like an embroidered linen napkin, spelling out the brand name in Meghan’s distinctive cursive, topped by a decidedly royal-looking crest.
There’s also an Instagram story, which is a vibe-y video collaging together clips of Meghan stirring something on the stove in a dreamy kitchen and standing in a ball gown at the end of a colonnade, all set to the tune of mid-century jazz singer Nancy Wilson’s “I Wish You Love.” The soft-focus film-reel projector effect gives it a vintage feel, hinting at the product offering we might expect from the brand.
You may be wondering whether the Instagram page is real; ITV royal expert Chris Shipp reported that Meghan’s team has confirmed the brand is indeed coming, although there’s no word yet on when it will officially be open to shoppers.
An accompanying website, which currently shows just the same image as the Instagram grid, was created by the same Toronto-based web design firm, Article, that created the website Meghan and Harry used to announce that they were quitting as working royals back in 2020. You can join “the waiting list” by entering your email.
The trademark filing for American Riviera Orchard says it intends to sell “tableware, drinkware including decanters, kitchen linens and edible treats such as jellies, jams, marmalade and spreads.”
There’s also an application to apply the trademark to cookbooks. According to the Daily Mail, the products will be just one part of an American Riviera Orchard empire, which will include a Netflix cooking show in which Meghan will be “making and selling her own products.” (The tabloid also painstakingly dissected the clip of Meghan cooking, listing all of the items in the shot—bowls, fruit stand, even the stove— that might potentially be product placement for the brand.)
This venture is hardly a surprising next step for Meghan, given her history as a chronicler of the lifestyle space with her blog The Tig, her involvement in the best-selling cookbook released by a charity she supported while a working royal, and her more recent investment in Clevr Blends, a Californian superfood latte brand.
The timing of this announcement, however, has raised eyebrows. It comes just as the royal family across the pond are embroiled in a conspiracy-fuelled PR nightmare, with King Charles being treated for cancer, Kate recovering from surgery and embroiled in a scandal of a doctored Mother’s Day photo and William subject to revived scrutiny over his rumoured affair with Rose Hanbury. It also comes on the same day that both William and Harry are set to appear at an event commemorating their late mother Princess Diana — separately, with Harry via video link once William has left the building.
It’s all a marked contrast to the domestic idyll that seems to be at the heart of American Riviera Orchard’s brand DNA.