Meghan falls victim to Hollywood trend

The Duchess of Sussex has announced she’s going into a new business and it’s a disappointment for one simple reason.

We’ve got a mystery on our hands. Where has Meghan gone?

Not the Duchess of Sussex who is now over on Instagram posting cutesy-tootsy family shots with the regularity of a Swiss watch armed with a marketing spreadsheet. Not the woman who is intent on ensuring the whole world knows how dang authentic she is, twerking her way into the news. And not the Duchess who now has a side hustle doing podcasts talking about how her spirit was stifled by certain unnamed forces who might know their way around a crumpet fork.

Where has Cool Meghan gone? The big news in Sussexland is that come July 1, the duchess’ As Ever business will release a rosé made from the Napa Valley grapes. And it might be bigger news if this was not exactly the same thing that a parade of starry names have already done. You know who else sells their own rosé? Every and any celebrity with an eye on making cash registers ring and who is not clutching an AA sobriety token.

Meghan Markle has launched yet another new business venture. Picture: Supplied

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At last count on the rosé front alone: Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz, Kylie Minogue, Brad Pitt, John Legend, Sarah Jessica Parker, Dave Matthews, John Malkovich, Jon Bongiovi, Sting and Trudie Styler, Post Malone, Snoop Dogg, and Mr Gabrielle Union, Dwayne Wade. And herein lies the greatest mystery of Meghan circa 2025 - what happened to the trailblazing woman of yore who used to bear aloft bold ideas of her own like the Boudicca of brainstorming? Where has that pioneering version of the Duchess of Sussex gone?

From the very first minute Meghan turned a corner in Toronto and appeared at the 2017 Invictus Games to make her palace-sanctioned debut as Prince Harrys girlfriend she heralded her intention to eagerly break moulds. What did she wear for this history-book moment?

Ripped jeans, a perfect white shirt and carrying an every-girl tote like she might need her laptop later. It was perfect and it was thrilling. She started as she meant to go.

When the duchess arrived on the royal scene, only three months after that Toronto moment, she was not so much a breath of fresh air as a gusting, gale of much-needed newness airing out musty corners.

From the outset, she signalled that she would do things her own way, busting out fabulous knee high suede boots for her debut working royal outing with Harry. For Meghans first night-time event she parted ways with 952 years of tradition, ditched the dresses and wore an Alexander McQueen trouser suit. (If only Matilda of Flanders had had a crisp black blazer when she dutifully crossed the channel after her husband William the Conqueror was done smiting Anglo-Saxons in 1066.) But Meghan took things beyond the satoriral.

Meghan and Harry are working hard to build their brand as a couple. Picture: Supplied.

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Her first major project was putting out a charity cookbook, which promptly sold out, she guest edited Vogue, launched a fundraising capsule collection and gave a speech in South Africa standing on a tree stump. Trails were blazed. Firsts tallied up. No moment better encapsulates the degree to which Meghan and husband Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex were intent on charting their own course, for better or worse, when in January 2020 they made the explosive decision to chuck in the full-time working royal towel - and to announce it via Instagram no less. The Duchess of Sussex was a perpetual Original.

However, at some point in the year since then, that creative, rule-bucking Meghan has been replaced by one whose creative and professional endeavours are more of the stale Sao variety. Her 2021 childrens book The Bench made the New York Times bestseller list - 41 years after King Charles released his kids effort, The Old Man of Lochnagar. The duchess 2022 podcast series Archetypes attracted a bevy of huge names but failed to break new ground. The Sussexes combined Netflix effort, the originally named Harry & Meghan, managed to largely reheat and retell a story that the world had come to know.

This year came With Love, Meghan, a prosaic addition to the lifestyle genre more than 40 years after Martha Stewart started teaching Americans how to artfully arrange peonies and decades after Nigella Lawson turned swooning over a gooey spatula into delicious TV-tainment. The same holds true for the duchess product lines, which include fruit spreads, a shortbread mix and herbal teas.

Meghan is following in the footsteps of stars like Drew Barrymore who have launched their own wine. Picture: Supplied.

The royal family have been in on this teatime lark since it occurred to King Charles back in 1992 to start hawking his Duchy Originals oatcakes, an excellent stand-in for a bit of cardboard or a drinks coaster, to raise money for charity. (And since 2009 they have been stocked by the Waitrose supermarket chain.)

The former actress is now hawking honey - Charles has been doing this since 2008 when he opened his own Highgrove bricks and mortar shop in Tetbury. (The money all goes to the charitable Kings Trust foundation.) Now Meghan is set to sell vino, 16 years after Charles to offer punters the chance to spend the equivalent of $98 on the same sparkling wine he served at home. The official Highgrove product line now includes an own-brand English sparkling rosé among other tipples. (In 2020, Buckingham Palace announced their own gin.)

The former royals have tried their hand at multiple different ventures over the years. Picture: Instagram.

Full marks for the Duchess of Sussex entrepreneurial up-and-at-em pep but where has rule-breaking, innovative woman gone who seemed full up to the brim of creativity and new ideas? There are some hints of what Meghan could be. In 2020 she invested in Clevr, a vegan latte brand and last year revealed to the New York Times she is building an investment portfolio focusing on female-run companies.

Please sir, can we have more of this? More of Meghan taking bigger leaps and wilder jumps and mapping new territory like a Marco Polo with a top notch compass? More of the 43-year-old rejecting well-trodden paths and striking off to do some forging new ones of her own? Im sure Meghans rosé will be a wonderful, crisp drop that will sell out in minutes. But you know what else is happening on July 1st? It would have been Diana, Princess of Wales 64th birthday, a woman who only ever followed her own star.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years experience working with a number of Australias leading media titles.

Originally published as Meghan falls victim to Hollywood trend