Is Harry and Meghan’s Brand Collapsing—and Can Dior Save It?

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Make no mistake: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle can rock a Dior outfit.

This could be very relevant to the Sussexes’ financial future. As Harry and Meghan’s lucrative podcasting deal with Spotify blew up last week—they were unceremoniously denounced as “fucking grifters” by the network’s own Bill Simmons as the door slammed behind them—and rumors circulated that their Netflix contract will be next to go down the tubes, reports of a juicy consolation prize emerged: The couple are being talked about as the new face of global fashion house Dior.

Although both Dior and Harry and Meghan’s people have been quick to cast doubt on the reports—Dior are said to be “nonplussed” by the reports, and Harry’s team have said they are ‘not true’—the notion of the of the most rarefied name in fashion hiring the Sussexes is, unsurprisingly, still a heady prospect.

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Harry, it has been suggested, may have laid some groundwork for the segue from broadcasting to fashion when he wore a Dior suit to the coronation of his father this year. Dior proudly tweeted a picture of Harry in their suit (marking the prince out from other family members who either wore British designers or kept patriotically quiet about it if they didn’t.) He also called on the label for some power gravitas chic when he appeared at London’s High Court earlier this month.

Meghan also wears Dior regularly, and has long been considered a fan of the exclusive label. Although she actually wore Givenchy for her wedding, that gown, with its boat neck collar, bracelet cuff, tiny cinched waist and romantic, billowing skirt was pure Dior aesthetic, a classic evocation of Dior’s celebrated “New Look” that saw old Hollywood stars, from Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn Monroe to Princess Grace, fall for the label in the 1950s and ’60s.

Princess Margaret, of course, was another Dior aficionado; in his 1956 memoir, Christian Dior wrote that Margaret “crystallized the whole popular frantic interest in royalty… she was a real fairy princess, delicate, graceful, exquisite.”

One fashion insider told The Daily Beast that, while they had no inside knowledge of whether or not a deal was being worked out, it would “absolutely” be a credible proposition for Harry and Meghan to tie up with Dior.

They said: “Fashion is like 24-hour news—you always need to be coming up with something new, whether that’s new styles, new accessories or, in this case, an amazing new advertising campaign featuring Harry and Meghan looking fabulous. Meghan has had moments of unpopularity and is not popular in the U.K., but the overall narrative, globally, is aspirational fairy-tale princess.

“Dior is the jewel in Bernard Arnault’s LVMH crown. It is the grandest and most prestigious fashion and haute couture brand in the world. Their challenge is to remain part of the conversation. Harry and Meghan can deliver that. These associations don’t have to last forever. It might just be a season or two and that’s fine. ”

However, one fashion photographer who has worked on many high profile global campaigns disagreed with that assessment, saying: “I can’t see what they can bring to Dior that Dior doesn’t have already. Dior is a timeless, immortal brand that you think of as slightly not of this earth. Harry and Meghan would cheapen it.

“If Netflix and Spotify are dropping them, I don’t see why Dior would want to pick them up from the water. Those fashion brands have to align themselves with the unassailable, not the tarnished. Harry and Meghan don’t represent aspiration and fairytale; they represent grievance.”

Norah Lawlor, president and founder of Lawlor Media Group, which runs crisis management and reputation communications strategy for luxury lifestyle and charities, told The Daily Beast: “The speculation concerning Harry and Meghan’s attractiveness for a fashion House such as Dior is maybe driven by the idea of a Grace Kelly-esque brand ambassador for modern times. The flaw in the thinking being that Meghan does not have the Hollywood visibility of Kelly but perhaps linking the two together to leverage Harry’s royal background—even though he eschews it daily—will work.”

But what if the idea of a Sussex/Dior tie-up is just a strategic fever dream? Is there other similar work available to Harry and Meghan that could help them pay their eye-watering legal and security bills, never mind the mortgage?

Lawlor thinks so: “They are potentially an attractive brand if they can capitalize on what was their focus and calling card—charitable works. Harry and Meghan have gone in media terms from caring for elephants in the African bush and military veterans at the Invictus Games, to books, TV interviews and mini-series, culminating in a two-hour car chase in gridlocked New York City. As a result, their brand has totally lost focus away from what made them attractive—a young, unique celebrity doing good in the world.

“Their push to monetize the situation and be financially independent has left them in no-man’s-land—neither media superstars nor charity A-listers. Perhaps the collapse of the Spotify deal and wobbliness around Netflix are an inflection point forcing Harry and Meghan to either go back to basics and focus on doing good works—which will attract corporates and brands, or rely on Meghan rebuilding her TV career with shows such as Deal or No Deal, or a Suits reboot.”

A request for comment to LVMH, the parent company of Dior went unanswered, as did requests to Harry and Meghan’s office.

However, a source at the French fashion house denied rumors of a deal to the Daily Telegraph saying the team were “nonplussed as to how the story came about.” A spokesperson for the Sussexes told the Telegraph the story is not true.

However the Telegraph also quoted a Sussex source as saying Harry has inherited his “long existing relationship with the house from his mother” and that he simply “likes working with Dior, and wearing their clothes.”

Whether or not the arrangement does become more formal, and lucrative, remains to be seen.