Combining her past as a lifestyle influencer and experience with Soho House, the Duchess of Sussex is forging ahead with a brand new venture focused on kitchenware.
Meghan Markle officially unveiled her new home décor brand yesterday, marking not only a return to her lifestyle blogging past, but also her entry into the large landscape of celebrity home furnishing businesses.
The brand, named American Riviera Orchard, at present includes an Instagram account, a landing page, and a tagline: By Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Established 2024.
A promotional video offers glimpses of the Duchess arranging flowers, busy in a stylishly rustic kitchen, and subtly appearing in a doorway donning a Grace Kelly-inspired ballgown.
Documents from trademark registration, discovered by the detectives at People magazine, indicate that her latest endeavour will concentrate on kitchen-related home goods.
AMERICANRIVIERA.COM
The platform will offer “books, tableware and table-scape items, table linens, serving ware”, including items such as cutlery, kitchen textiles, napkins and napkin rings, placemats, tea and coffee services, and drinkware.
Expect cookbooks and recipes, along with a variety of delectable goodies like jellies, jam, marmalades, fruit preserves, nut and fruit butters, dairy and non-dairy spreads, oils, and tahini.
Basically, it has everything one would require to create a classy royal feast and serve it to your dear ones.
Here’s what we know so far:
The name: American Riviera Orchard could be a tribute to her cherished home in California.
Markle and her husband, Prince Harry, have made their home in Montecito, a prestigious area in Santa Barbara referred to as the American Riviera for its Mediterranean climate, beaches, and vineyards.
The couple resides in a nine-bedroom mansion priced at $14 million (£10.9 million), filled with Hermes cashmere blankets and Soho House’s rosewater candles (we’ll touch more on the latter later).
The expansive property includes a chicken coop, a rose garden and olive trees.
Whether they have their own orchard is unclear, but this could be a creative way to signify nature’s bounty —and a lucrative business opportunity.
The logo: evokes royal ties.
American Riviera Orchard’s logo is a monogram designed in an embroidery style with an intertwined A and R, in an old graphic tradition symbolizing heritage and nobility.
Monarchies in their heraldic tradition have a royal cypher formed from the overlapping initials of the sovereign, which can be found everywhere from buildings to state documents.
In the Victorian era, it became a fad for the European aristocracy to have their own monograms stamped on silverware and embroidered into napkins.
The brand may well include some contemporary monogrammed table linen in Markle’s preferred tasteful shades.
It is a smart appeal for an American ex-royal looking to appeal to the admiration for everything royal by an Anglophile audience.
The precedent: welcome to The Tig 2.0. Markle is no stranger to the lifestyle sector.
Before her royal romance, she owned a successful blog The Tig, where she shared advice on food, travel, fashion, and beauty.
The blog was named after Tignanello, her most-loved Tuscan red wine.
Therefore, American Riviera Orchard could mark the new setting in which she has planted her family.
Alongside The Tig, Markle served as a brand ambassador for British membership club Soho House while she resided in Toronto during the production of her TV show, Suits.
Despite recent complaints about outdated décor and subpar service, Soho House was considered a prime attraction during its heyday.
Markle had her first date with Harry at Soho House’s Dean Street branch, and she appointed Vicky Charles, former head of design at Soho House, to supervise the refurbishment of Frogmore Cottage in 2019.
Since relocating, she remains faithful to the brand, lighting Soho House candles in her Montecito home when inviting a reporter for her 2022 interview with The Cut – where she also hinted at her imminent return to Instagram.
In the past, Markle has successfully produced a bestselling cookbook, titled Together: Our Community Cookbook, to generate funds for the kitchen set up by survivors of the Grenfell Tower fire.
The Duchess joins a long list of celebrity women who have created their own lifestyle brands available for purchase.
Gwyneth Paltrow led the trend with Goop, followed by Rihanna with Fenty Beauty, Reese Witherspoon with Draper James embodying Southern charm, and even Blake Lively with the short-lived Preserve.
The launch: a meaningful date.
While some royal observers suggest this is an unashamed capitalization on the intense speculation regarding her sister-in-law, the launch was undoubtedly pre-planned to align with a significant date for the Sussex House.
March 14th marks the anniversary of Harry and Meghan’s ‘freedom flight’ when they escaped the UK for a new American life.
The launch video reinforces the romantic narrative of this journey with its song choice: I Wish You Love by Nancy Wilson.
Wilson was a working-class Black jazz singer who achieved fame as an entertainer, and like Markle was also divorced.
While the song references heartbreak, lyrics like ‘and in July a lemonade, to cool you in some leafy glade, I wish you health, and more than wealth, I wish you love’ certainly fit a home décor brand promoting a peaceful hosting experience in a sunny locale.
This all sets the scene for an enticing new venture in interior design.
