Attending a roundtable discussion on gender equality with The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust (QCT) and One Young World at Windsor Castle this morning Meghan Markle opted to wear a BOSS pencil skirt in glossy berry leather. A master of colour blocking, she flexed her expert coordination skills by teaming it with a matching knit and Sarah Flint pumps in a custom shade.
The look might have exuded easy elegance, but nothing about what she wears – especially in a week where scrutiny of Meghan, as a woman and a Duchess, has reached fever pitch – is accidental.
Still a relative newcomer to royal life, Meghan has already got the memo that everything she wears is loaded with the assumption that it must Say Something. In the past two years, she’s had to adapt – fast. Meghan has become the consummate canny dresser. She knows that brand choices should be ambassadorial, price tags should be appropriate, and her look should always be a precise blend of aspirational and attainable. Every heel, hat and hemline can, and does, invite intense scrutiny and acres of news coverage. No pressure.
The BOSS skirt is a particularly smart choice for Meghan. The classic silhouette is polished (read: appropriate), the leather – a big trend for AW19 – is modern. It’s a piece that rings true to her personal brand of pared-back glossiness, but with its whiff of subversion, the skirt says she’s still confident enough to bend the rules a little. And what better way to than to let her critics know that she will not be shrinking away than by opting for photo-op ready head-to-toe red (albeit a muted, autumnal hue – so that she cannot be accused of brazen attention seeking)? All in all, it’s a win for diplomatic dressing.
It’s BOSS’s stealth luxury that resonates with the royals. The timeless designs are contemporary, but confidently eschew faddy, overtly trend-driven details. They are pieces you can return to again and again, without looking dated and, as such, act as scaffolding to a grown-up, considered wardrobe which prizes style over fashion.
Meghan’s not the only royal with a soft spot for BOSS, the German brand helmed by chief brand office Ingo Wilts which is renowned for its excellent tailoring. Indeed, that leather skirt (£369 – and still available, but be quick!) was spotted on Queen Letizia of Spain just yesterday, who wore hers with a white lace blouse. Meghan wore an emerald green version of the same style a year ago, and a plissé, pleated skirt from the label at Wimbledon this summer. Kate Middleton has previously been spotted in a T-shirt and heels by the brand. Does her choice of a royal favourite send a message that she's in step with the rest of the family?
You can currently get the skirt in nude, red or black. It's still in stock in an 8, 10, 12 and 14.
Meghan Markle favourite books - Grazia
The Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery
'I have long been obsessed with this book, and specifically with The Little Fox,' Meghan told her Tig readers. 'Even if I don't revisit the entire existential text (masked as a children's book), the chapter of The Little Fox unearths a truth in me that is always worth the check-in.' Having never read The Little Prince (more of a The Little Princess kind of person, really) I've resorted to a time-honoured means of literary analysis, Spark Notes, and still can't quite unpick what the Fox is all about. He does, however, tell the Prince that you can only truly see with your heart, not your eyes, which is a rather lovely sentiment. Let's just assume that her choice of a book about a Prince foreshadowed the fact that she'd one day… marry a Prince? Wait, come back…
The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz
Based on ancient Toltec wisdom and promising to contain a code of conduct that should theoretically lead to freedom, happiness and love, Meghan was given a copy of The Four Agreements by her mother Doria when she was 13 years old. Per her Tig piece, she 'constantly circle[s] back to the Don Miguel Ruiz classic for the simplest ways to simplify your life,' and from her clever use of repetition, we can glean that Meghan loves simplicity; she was probably into Marie Kondo before it was a thing, you guys! The Agreements themselves actually sound like they have the potential to be pretty useful in Meghan's future life. First, there's 'be impeccable with your word,' fair advice given that everything the new royal says on the record has the power to generate its own news story. Then there's 'don't take anything personally' and 'don't make assumptions' – don't take Prince George's side-eye personally, and don't assume you have to dress in homage to Princess Diana – and 'always do your best.'
The Motivation Manifesto by Brendon Burchard
'Annoyed by your self-doubt and distractions? The noise that keeps you from reaching your potential? Okay, so yeah. Me too,' Meghan writes of the Motivation Manifesto, the second self-help book on her list and one which boasts the #content-worthy subtitle 9 Declarations to Claim Your Personal Power. Author Burchard is a motivational speaker whose tag line is Live, Love, Matter, which we can imagine written in cursive on a Tig-friendly scatter cushion, and has a profile on Success.com, so we can only infer that he's a Very Successful Guy. What else can we learn from this choice, other than the fact that our Meghan is a goal-oriented individual? Perhaps that she would probably get on well with fictional character Alan Johnson from Peep Show.
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff
'Aspects of Taoism told through the characters of Winnie the Pooh – I mean, does it get better?' Meghan gets to the crux of The Tao of Pooh – an introduction to Taoist beliefs featuring the inhabitants of the 100 Acre Wood – far quicker and more succinctly than we ever could. Assumption made: Meghan is totally the friend who brings you a fridge magnet bearing (no pun intended) a deep slogan under a picture of Pooh walking into the distance, telling you 'I just thought of you when I saw it!'
Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson M.D
Meghan's third and final self-help tome purports to contain the World's Most Popular Management Method; according to her lost Tig feature, she first picked the book up as part of the required reading for an Industrial Engineering class at Northwestern University. Who Moved My Cheese is a parable in which – spoiler alert – the cheese represents everything you want to have in life. Has Meghan found the cheese? Yes – someone gave her a wedding cake sculpted from cheese back in January!