One of the most common things we hear about Meghan from a negative perspective is how expensive her wardrobe is and how it’s out of reach for the “average woman” to shop designers, styles and brands like Meghan does on a limited budget. One of the other comments we hear often is how hypocritical it must be for Meghan to wear all these new clothes and still care about causes like sustainability given she only wears pieces (so far) once.
Luckily for us, there is something we know about Meghan’s past that lets us know that she both thinks about the economic viability of her wardrobe as well as the sustainability aspect of her fashion choices… Consignment shopping. Meghan has been photographed sharing one of her favourite vintage consignment stores in Toronto and is rumoured to have cleaned out some of her closets through consignment stores like the RealReal. Fashionista reported last year that the “Meghan Markle Effect” was not just hitting designers that Meghan was wearing now, but of her past wears as well.
One of our Editor top picks for consignment shopping – with a luxury flair – is through The RealReal. Today marks their National Consignment Day, a day meant to bring awareness to not only the huge benefits of cleaning out your closet while reaping financial rewards from its contents, but also lets you pick up pieces from other people’s closets at a fraction of the cost to build out your own look while helping not only another fashionista downsize her wardrobe, but the planet as well – with 2.5 billion pounds of textiles saved from landfills through resale, consignment is not only financially smart, it’s also sustainable… Something we know Meghan stands behind!
Photo by Tim Rooke/REX/Shutterstock
The RealReal has calculated that they, with the help of their consignors, have made luxury fashion more sustainable in a demonstrable way – by saving 246 million litres of water – offsetting 1 billion glasses’ worth of water. Both our Meghan’s Mirror Editors have consigned, shopped and fallen in love with The RealReal, and love not only that you can feel good about the sustainability factor, but also stay stylish while saving money. Amanda, for example, trades in clothes regularly and has a credit balance with them so she’s always ready to pull the trigger on a new fashion obsession. Like this purse…
Image via The RealReal
We thought we’d share some of our top “Meghan Markle” inspired picks to celebrate National Consignment Day.
Meghan’s style is fabulous as a former celebrity and now as a royal. When she wears something high-end, she highlights a designer. This is a boost to the designer and the economy. People will follow it, according to their budget by purchasing the same outfit or buying an inspired lower cost look.
Carla
http://www.motownsavvy.com
Love RealReal – I’m a big consignor (though I’ve never shopped there) and can attest to the rigorous process they use to authenticate, check the condition, and price their stock. Another note about “Meghan’s past”: like other celebrities, many of the clothes Meghan wore once in her off-set life when she was on “Suits” were borrowed from designers and retailers. For example, the dress she wore to speak at the UN was from the closet of her UK-based publicist at the time, Jessica Huie, and she worked with Jessica to borrow clothes from the Outnet (Net A Porter’s sister company) for other events. This was a much bigger source of her clothes than vintage stores. Since she cannot do this as a member of the royal family, I’m sure she’ll re-wear or adapt her high-end pieces as Kate, Michelle Obama, and other fashion role models do (and Meghan is already doing with shoes and bags).
Is this article based on one instagram post of Meghan at a consignment shop? I think five months of marriage is too short a time to make any assumptions of the direction of Meghan’s wardrobe. She is still in the process of building it. I get the desire to be authoritative source on what Meghan wears but I think she should be given time to figure out what she wants to wear whether it’s designer, high street or consignment. I also believe that Meghan’s Mirror, having only started following her after she started dating Harry, you may not be aware of all her style and designer choices prior to Harry. The belief that she never or rarely wore designer clothes before Harry is incorrect.
Hi Amy,
Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment. We really appreciate it!
To clarify – we have not ever said that Meghan did not wear expensive or designer clothing before she got married. She absolutely did, and we know this not only because we did follow her style before she dated Harry (as we have referenced on the blog in the past as well as in many media interviews) but also because we have in our style archives many of the pieces she wore before she was the Duchess of Sussex which prove it.
What we think has changed is that she used to wear designer clothes differently. This is largely, arguably, due to the role she now plays. In the past, she’d often (just to be clear, we’re saying not always, but often) wear designer clothing that had been gifted to her, was from a friend, or was on loan from stylists. This is standard life for an actress, and while she did play a part in picking the styles on many/most occasions, she did not often own them. Now, that doesn’t mean she didn’t buy and own expensive or designer pieces. She did. But they were largely differently selected type pieces than they are now – she’d buy classic foundational pieces for her wardrobe as it was what she could afford to do, versus the almost entirely designer selection she wears now. We believe that this is not because of a personal style change but because of the role she now plays coupled with the expectations of the role and, let’s face it, a large wardrobe budget to support it. Her pieces now are often selected for specific purposes, and frequently for specific events to speak sartorially through fashion. We hope that we start to see repeats of some of the pieces in the near future, but she’s just started to build her royal wardrobe.
To further comment on that point, Meghan couldn’t possibly have afforded to purchase all of the bespoke, custom designer clothing she is now wearing in her “past life”. This led her to doing something which has endeared her to those of us who followed her before she was a Duchess by mixing high & low into a relatable, personable style. She also used to pair her designer pieces frequently with more budget finds which we have not yet seen HRH Meghan get into that extensively (and again, we’re not saying she hasn’t – think of the Marks & Spencer jumper – we’re just saying it hasn’t been that frequent yet) Because of her love of mixing high & low – and our research and interviews with people from her life while she lived in Toronto – yes, we are confident that Meghan did vintage/consignment shop and would definitely recommend the option to friends who were looking for an affordable, environmentally friendly & fashionable way to style themselves. Was it the only way she shopped? No. But we do know that she did this some of this type of shopping as “Meghan Markle” and know that she’s not rummaging around London’s consignment shops as “HRH Duchess Meghan”. We were simply trying to share with our readers this way of shopping as a possibility for them to look for Meghan styles, or Meghan inspired styles, by designers that might otherwise be unattainable for them to add to their wardrobes through this avenue.
Possibly the point we can both agree on is that it’s been a very short time for Meghan to set any style precedents as a member of the royal family. Time will tell what her style will turn out to be, and we can’t wait to see what that looks like. We believe that you’ll agree on this and hope that you’ll stick with us as we discover what it is 🙂
Have a great day!
I have never seen a long reply from MM…dang, I love it lol.
It almost calls for a follow up piece, right? Meghan’s appearance at Sussex kind of rebutts what was said in response to me. I’ll repeat that five months is too early to make broad judgements/pronouncementson meghan’s style choices as are made here and the recent contribution to the daily beast article on meghan’s royal style.