Kerry Parnell: Meghan is the queen of home office styling

The Duchess of Sussex launched a women at work project on her 40th birthday but all Kerry Parnell could concentrate on was Megan’s immaculate, co-ordinating home office.

All hail Meghan, Duchess of Deskex: she’s the winner of workspace wellness, the queen of the home office.

The women at work project Meghan launched on her 40th birthday this week was great, but I couldn’t concentrate on the message she was sending because I was distracted by her immaculate, co-ordinating home office.

Every single thing in her workspace tied together tonally, including the dog.

Meghan even co-ordinated her outfit to the cream and neutral decor, wearing a Carrie-esque cool casual ensemble of white vest, cream cashmere wrap, white cropped pants, Diana’s gold Cartier watch and camel Manolos. Very Sussex in the City.

And forget Melissa McCarthy and Prince Harry’s comedy turns, I couldn’t take my eyes of her desk – for it is a thing of beauty. Distressed wood, finely turned legs, oatmeal-coloured dining chair.

And that’s before we even get to the artfully-arranged office accoutrements – her laptop perched atop a stack of books and a pile of her children’s book, The Bench, healing quartz crystal, decorative glass bottles, white flowers, cream Hermes blanket draped across a chair, white paper inbox and tea and biscuits on a gilt-handled tray.

This is next-level home-office styling.

Meghan Markle’s work office is a work of art, Kerry Parnell writes. Picture: Archewell

The only thing I can hope is that shoved in the corner of the room is a cascading ski-slope of kids’ crap that Mum booted out of shot before filming, but somehow, I doubt it.

There are so many toddler traps in that office, from teetering vase of flowers, to breakable glass bottles and tea cup crying to be up-ended over the sisal carpet, it’s either styled just for filming, or it is a parent panic room set-up with a vault-door that even a two-year-old can’t crack.

I don’t care if it’s fake, I like fantasising about having a space like that. I’m sure that’s what Virginia Woolf was envisaging when she penned A Room Of One’s Own, although to be honest, I’d settle for a shed, just to get some peace.

Meghan Markle in her 40th birthday skit with Melissa McCarthy. Picture: Archewell

One of the tormenting things about pandemic working and schooling from home is seeing other people’s perfect set-ups (real or otherwise) online, but I just can’t stop scrolling.

If Meghan lets us peek in her pantry as well, then that would just finish me off.

Desk and pantry-porn is a real thing – there are 7.5 million home office inspo posts on Instagram, interestingly nearly all of them beige, and thousands more pantry posts, with endless images of white shelves and glass jars of neatly-labelled dry goods.

I can only dream of a tranquil work space with white desk, white shelves and Muji recycled stationery.

Truly, I can only dream of it, because my “worky corner” I scavenged by my bedroom is now a storage space for paint pots my other half placed there, destined to be cleared away in 2034.

When I do attempt to squeeze past them and sit at my desk, the cheap chair we bought online randomly collapses in a kind of back-breaking-bingo surprise feature.

So instead, I work from the kitchen table in my slippers, while my kids alternate between punching each other and producing craft in such a prodigious volume, they regularly bury my laptop and threaten to one day overwhelm me entirely.

It’s not chic, but rhymes with it.