In the past week, I’ve noticed several larger outlets publishing “second reviews” of the Duchess of Sussex’s With Love, Meghan. It’s almost like there was a feeding frenzy of bullsh-t around WLM initially, and several outlets have slowly started to walk it back because they realize that they looked absolutely unhinged. It’s one thing to have a TV reviewer say “this show might not be for everyone, but I’m sure some people will enjoy it” and it’s quite another to participate in the wall-to-wall character assassination of a woman who was simply doing a lifestyle show. In any case, the coverage of Meghan and WLM has softened a bit in recent days, and Women’s Wear Daily even ran this interesting piece about how everything Meghan touches or wears turns to gold:

Meghan Markle‘s As Ever is off to a good start. Set to debut its first collection in the spring, the lifestyle brand earned $10 million in media impact value from its sister project, the Netflix series “With Love, Meghan.” MIV is a proprietary metric that assigns an actual monetary value to marketing strategies across print, online and social media to calculate return on investment.

A new report from Launchmetrics also points out that Loro Piana earned $1 million in MIV thanks to Markle’s quiet luxury style. In one of the episodes, the wife of Prince Harry embraced high-low dressing in a Loro Piana sweater, which retails for around $1,325, paired with pleated pants courtesy of Zara. The Spanish fast fashion retailer also profited from the show’s exposure, earning $973,000 in MIV.

In another episode of “With Love, Meghan,” the Duchess of Sussex wore a cashmere boyfriend sweater by Jenni Kayne, earning the brand $497,000 in MIV, and a ship-print midi dress from Emilia Wickstead, one of her go-to brands, which earned $362,000 in MIV. The data was collected between March 4 and March 11.

Markle reintroduced her lifestyle brand As Ever on Feb. 18, promising to sell jams, herbal teas, cookware, home goods, linens and apparel. The label was initially launched in 2024 as American Riviera Orchard. However, the name ran into trademark issues — the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office denied Markle’s bid to use the name in a filing dated Aug. 31, 2024.

[From WWD]

WWD is obviously focused more on the fashion side, but I’d be interested in learning about the MIV for Le Creuset, because it feels like EVERYONE is buying Le Creuset now because Meghan has a Le Creuset set (or at least a few pieces). Fun fact: Kamala Harris is also a huge fan of the French enameled ironware! As for fashion… the thing is, people have always known this about Meghan’s fashion. She doesn’t even have to identify what she’s wearing, people will hunt down the IDs and buy up everything in every size. This is why I hope that once the As Ever line is up and running and successful, Meghan expands everything to include some branded merch like t-shirts, aprons, baseball caps, etc. All she would have to do is wear an As Ever-branded apron in the show and it would sell out in minutes.

Photos courtesy of Netflix.