If you love The Daily Beast’s royal coverage, then we hope you’ll enjoy The Royalist, a members-only series for Beast Inside. Become a member to get it in your inbox on Sunday.
When Prince Harry and Megan Markle officially stepped back from their royal duties right around this time last year, the internet lost a favorite pastime: the scrupulous over-analyzation of what Meghan wore.
Luckily, the famous couple has returned to the spotlight in what promises to be an explosive, tell-all attack on the royal family via a weekend primetime interview with Oprah Winfrey. “You’ve said some pretty shocking things,” Winfrey says in a promo. And such drama requires an outfit to match—one Meghan absolutely nails in Armani.
ADVERTISEMENT
As reported by Town & Country, Meghan wore a black silk Armani midi dress, belted with a full skirt and lotus embellishment on the shoulder. (It’s still on sale and costs $4,700, for anyone who might be interested in purchasing a very accurate, and expensive, Meghan Markle Halloween costume.)
Town & Country noted, “Meghan specifically chose a dress with a lotus flower for her landmark interview with Oprah because of the symbolism behind the bloom... it is associated with rebirth and spiritual enlightenment.”
And so Meghan will dish about how she found life as a royal, and the painful media attention that surrounded it, “almost unsurvivable,” while wearing a dress that screams: I made it out. It’s a carefully-crafted statement of resilience. Given Meghan’s tendency to speak her values through her clothing, it’s hard to not read into the message.
But do not think there was a threshold for sparkle: Along with the shiny lotus, Meghan also wore a diamond bracelet that belonged to Princess Diana, whose legacy, and tragic death, are also evoked in the promo.
Harry tells Oprah he wanted to leave the royal family because “I was afraid history would repeat itself.” Meghan sits next to him, holding his hand, her wrist adorned with Diana’s bracelet. So Harry’s mother is there, both in spirit and through a tangible relic.
This is, of course, not the first time that Meghan has used her clothes as an extension of her talking points. When the couple announced they are expecting their second child last month, Meghan posed for the photo in a Carolina Herrera dress she “recycled” from her first pregnancy with son Archie.
So there are plenty of symbolic little Easter eggs in Meghan’s Oprah look. But it also just oozes glamour. It’s a little vintage in its silhouette, and slightly incongruous from the interview backdrop: a decidedly low-key, very California backyard patio.
Meghan has often been praised for her “relatability;” she’s worn affordable-ish Everlane flats, Aritzia dresses, and J. Crew. This dress does not follow that they’re-just-like-us tradition.
For a serious confessional, Meghan wanted serious fashion. It is very black tie, and much fancier than Harry’s tech-bro-at-a-wedding gray suit with an open collar. It’s almost as if they got dressed for two different occasions that day.
This dichotomy could be another example of the unfair reality of how famous women are expected to look compared to men, or it’s just indicative of something we already know: Meghan is the main event. The dress makes sure of it.
