How will Meghan change her style?
‘The last hat for a while, guys!” the Duchess of Sussex reportedly said as she left for her final engagement as a member of the Royal family in March, according to Finding Freedom, the Meghan and Harry biography released this week. Days later, we learnt that the couple have now set up a permanent home in Santa Barbara, 90 minutes up the coast from Los Angeles.
When the Duke and Duchess of Sussex decamped to LA earlier this year, we thought we knew exactly what that meant, style-wise. “I’m just a Cali girl,” Meghan had told her UK hairdresser George Northwood at their first meeting, alluding to her preference for easy, laidback looks.
But now that I’ve taken in all three series of Selling Sunset,
I can see that geography is everything when you breezily say “Cali”. For the uninitiated, the Netflix show follows the compelling minutiae of life for a group of glamorous “realtors” selling multimillion-dollar properties in the most soughtafter LA neighbourhoods. They have wardrobes to match – Balmain blazers, Hermès handbags and barely-bumgrazing bodycon dresses.
If this is one genre of “Cali” style right now then Meghan will undoubtedly define the antidote as she settles into Santa Barbara life – no hats required.
As far as I can tell, the Duchess’s new wardrobe essential is set to be… a wetsuit.
Prince Harry has already, apparently, been spotted surfing in the area, so it’s surely not long before Meghan joins in. If the couple are keen to keep their British ties, then Finisterre’s sustainable style, developed to perform “for hardy British surfers”, is the on-point choice, while Summersalt, a Missourisaturday based label has more fashionforward pieces that are still made from recycled materials.
A study of the Sussexes’ Santa Barbara neighbours – Oprah, Natalie Portman, Ellen Degeneres – suggests that the more high-profile you are, the more downplayed your SB look should be, with a healthy sprinkling of wokeness at all times. Oprah does this via the medium of denim shirts and chinos, for Portman it’s a rotation of charity-supporting tees and jeans.
Meghan is, in many ways, ahead of the game here. In her royal days, she supported do-gooding denim labels like the Welsh Hiut Denim or Australia’s Outland – perhaps she’ll add Boyish, an eco California brand, or Triarchy, which makes denim using 85 per cent recycled water, to the roster.
Her roster of mannish shirts from Misha Nonoo, Ralph Lauren and With Nothing Underneath will come in handy, too, but could be styled in a more polished way for an outing to the Santa Barbara Polo and Racquet Club. For keeping cosy when that sea breeze picks up, a Patagonia fleece is de rigueur – the environmentally friendly outdoor label has its HQ just down the road in Ventura and has perfected the art of making seemingly boring clothes incredibly desirable thanks to the values its logo semaphores.
Finally, dress-wise, Gwyneth Paltrow is setting the standard. Her Goop website has called Santa Barbara “one of the best things about southern California” and she’s recently bought a home there. She may not have been in the area when she posted a picture of herself, her daughter Apple and her mother Blythe all wearing pieces from her
G Label at Goop collection last weekend, but the vibe is pure SB; barefoot, long “woke-uplike-this” or, more accurately, “got-out-of-the-sea-like-this” hair and not much make-up. This way, their dresses looked thrown-on and relaxed rather than OTT.
It’s a look Santa Barbara’s newest Cali girl resident will, I’m sure, make her own.