Back in December, the smear campaign against the Duchess of Sussex was in full effect. Most of the smears were centered around the “feud” between Meghan and Kate. The duchesses seemed to nip that in the bud on Christmas Day, by making the effort to look chatty and friendly with each other. Their friendliness seemed to expose something else though: that the real feud is probably between their husbands, and that Meghan and Kate are being used as pawns in the brothers’ war. Anyway, back in December, I lost track of how many stories were about how Meghan and Kate were sniping at each constantly. One of those stories was hilariously about how Kate and her people were super-mad about Meghan “copying” Kate’s style. Which… please. Meghan has worn some buttony ensembles and she’s worn a few looks which reminded me of Kate, but mostly Meghan has carved out her own style story. And “sources” say that Meghan did that on purpose:

Meghan Markle has worked over the past year to establish her fashion identity as a working duchess—and consciously create a style different from Kate Middleton’s, a royal insider tells ELLE.com. Despite salacious tabloids alleging Kate and her team are annoyed that Meghan has copied her, Kate is not actually upset by or jealous of Meghan, as the women have very different styles and interests. In fact, Kate has been helping her. “Kate has been on hand to help guide Meghan with advice about certain designers and royal protocol,” the royal insider explains.

Meghan and Kate have different teams to plan their outfits. Meghan works with her friend and stylist Jessica Mulroney to review what she’ll wear to events long in advance, as Mulroney is based in Toronto and visits Meghan only periodically.

From the very start, Meghan and Mulroney knew that the Kate comparisons would be inevitable—and they treaded carefully in the beginning. The royal insider explains that there was a “conscious effort” by the two women to “not be accused of copying Kate’s style.” Their goal was to give Meghan her own unique wardrobe. But Meghan and Mulroney aren’t completely opposed to taking a little inspiration from Kate since the Duchess of Cambridge dresses so well and according to royal protocol. Mulroney has “certainly kept an eye on Kate’s style because she hasn’t put a foot wrong and is a great role model,” the insider says.

[From Elle]

Eh, they’re bending over backwards to make it sound like Kate always looks flawless, like she hasn’t spent a good chunk of her duchess years with flyaway hems, hot pink coats at memorials and what must be a million button-slathered ensembles. What bugs me is that Meghan will never be given the same time to develop her duchess-look – she’s expected to instantly get it right from the word “go” and that’s impossible. As for Meghan making a conscious effort to not copy Kate…yes, and you can see that. But what’s weird is that it definitely feels like Kate has subtly copied Meghan several times over the past few months.

Photos courtesy of WENN, Backgrid.