She went by ferry to the tiny island of Gozo and tasted the famous Goz cheeselet, and then after returning to the main island she explored the Casa Rocca Piccola in Valletta and viewed the Caravaggio paintings at St. John’s Co-Cathedral. During a week enjoying la dolce vita, she fell in love with Maltese cuisine. Meghan threw herself into her cooking lesson with chef Pippa Mattei, Malta’s equivalent of Martha Stewart, at her home in Attard. As Meghan liked to emphasize that, as a California girl, her experience with farm-to-table cuisine was hardwired, here was an opportunity to see the Maltese version. Mattei took her shopping for produce in the local farmers market, then gave her a lesson in pasta and pastizzi making, followed by a meal in Mattei’s garden. Oh, if only she could bring back a suitcase full of Maltese treats.
For the girl who conjured The Tig from her favorite tipple, no visit to Malta would have been complete without a comprehensive wine tasting. The actor visited the Meridiana wine estate for a leisurely afternoon exploring fruity reds and tasty whites. As Maltese wines rarely, if ever, reach the shores of the US, this was a real treat. She didn’t discover much more about her Maltese ancestry—but she did discover the delights of this bucolic island.
Her visit to Malta was a solo trip even though her chef boyfriend would have been inspired by the variety and distinctiveness of the local cuisine. Like Meghan, he was being kept busy, on the verge of starting a new venture, Flock Rotisserie and Greens, a restaurant specializing in roast chicken and salad. “I’ve been testing a fair bit of roast chicken on Meghan,” he admitted. The chef was working virtually round the clock running three restaurants.
He was also in front of the camera too, taping episodes of Chef in Your Ear for Food Network Canada, which were due for broadcast in August 2015. Taking a leaf out of Meghan’s philanthropy playbook, he volunteered for Kids Cook to Care, a program for youngsters who are taught how to make home-cooked meals by celebrity chefs. It would hopefully ignite their understanding of proper cooking techniques and the importance of serving the community.
With his filming and restaurant commitments, he was unable to join Meghan on her next exotic jaunt—to Istanbul, where she, together with actor Eddie Redmayne, 50 Shades actor Jamie Dornan, and British singer Paloma Faith were on hand to celebrate the opening of the latest enclave of Soho House.
It was another glamorous interlude in her busiest and most successful year to date. Her UN speech was matched by an invitation to become the face for one of Canada’s oldest and most respected retailers, Reitmans. There was more, the ninety-year-old store chain wanted her to curate her own clothing line. Not only was her face going to be on billboards and on TV all over Canada, she was going to influence how women dressed.
It was a marvelous opportunity, though when she first mentioned the overture to savvy friends they scoffed at the idea of involving herself with a retail brand that was so fuddy-duddy. “Oh, that’s where my mom would buy her jeans in the eighties,” they chorused. Meghan was not so sure. As an American she didn’t have the same knee-jerk reaction toward this venerable retailer as her Canadian friends. At meetings with store executives, Meghan brought a fresh eye. “There are pieces here that are so cool that if you’re going to reenergize it, I’d be happy to be a part of that,” she said. They planned an advertising campaign starring Meghan wearing trimmer, slimmer, hipper Reitmans clothing. In one commercial, Meghan is filmed walking into an elegant restaurant where two ladies who lunch eagerly give the TV star the once over. One exclaims: “So stylish” while the other asks what she is wearing. They then try to crawl over the back of the booth to get a closer look at the label in her shirt. Catching them in the act, Meghan smiles and says, “Ladies, it’s Reitmans.” Another showed Meghan, all crisp business, slick high heels, and tight jeans, speaking on her cell phone as she strides out into the street. As the camera follows her down the street, she notices herself in the store’s glass window. Her cute alter ego in the reflection preens and wiggles for the camera before blowing her other half a kiss. Cue her slogan for the brand: “Reitmans. Really.”
Not only was she the brand ambassador, she worked hard on a capsule collection to be launched in spring 2016. Meghan was thrilled, reflecting on the days when she was a little girl and how she had sat with her mother at her clothing store, A Change of a Dress on La Brea in Los Angeles. In those far-off days, Doria had taken her daughter to fabric warehouses, where she had walked along the aisles. Now she had the opportunity to create her own fashion line. Meghan and the design team sketched out ideas, played with swatches, and examined the zippers and fit of sample pieces. As she later remarked: “I’m super involved with the design process, and I’m sure that it drives them crazy. But how could I not? It has my name on it.”
First off the runway in the Meghan Markle Collection were four distinct dresses: the Soiree, Date Night, a maxi-dress named the Sunset and a Little White Dress. Once she had approved the designs, it was a fingers and toes crossed moment for the actor, anxious that her fans and the wider public appreciated her efforts. As she wrote in her blog: “I toiled over design and print, I shared my thoughts on everything and I ended up with a limited collection of pieces that reflect facets of my personal style that I think you’ll love.”
All the dresses sold for under $100 each, revealing the budget-conscious nature of their creator, who boasted that she shopped the sale rack. “I’ve always been the girl flipping through hangers looking for the best deal.”
Of course, that’s not quite true. When her designer friend Misha Nonoo invited her to join her at the 2015 Vogue CFDA/Vogue Fashion Fund awards in New York in early November, Meghan was thrilled to wear one of the pieces from her collection. It was a short liquid metal dress that showed off her legs combined with a plunging deep V neck. It was a showstopper, and photographers clamored for a snap of the TV star.
Not only was she a photographers’ darling, a billboard pinup, and a TV regular, the ubiquitous Meghan Markle was now the central character in a chick lit novel, What Pretty Girls Are Made Of, written by her “bestie from the westie” Lindsay Jill Roth, who was such a frequent visitor to her Toronto home that the spare bedroom was christened Lindsay’s room. It had taken Roth five years, and copious glasses of wine, to craft the jaunty novel based on the exploits of her heroine, Alison Kraft. Since Alison was a little girl, all she has ever dreamed of is being an actor. Too bad that after years of auditions she doesn’t have the stellar career she envisioned. After some soul searching, she looks for other jobs and ends up working for a makeup guru.
It was of course a thinly disguised portrait of Meghan during her lean years in the noughties. Lindsay had all the research material she needed, not just from Meghan’s lips but from the blog Working Actress, about the ups and downs of life for a struggling wannabe, which Meghan is now credited with writing. Meghan loved it, posting effusive Instagrams touting the fluffy tome. Naturally she was at the summer launch party, afterward taking her pal to an ice hockey game. Not only did Lindsay give her actor friend a shout-out for helping her explore “what pretty is,” she sent a copy of her amusing trifle to Kate Middleton at Kensington Palace, her accompanying card informing the duchess that in her eyes she was the definition of “prettiness.”
Lindsay then proudly posted the pro forma thank-you note from the Duchess of Cambridge’s office online. She never for a second contemplated meeting the future queen at Windsor Castle after her best friend married Prince Harry. If she had suggested that plot to her publisher, they would have laughed her out of their New York offices.
In fact, Meghan was about to get married, but neither to Prince Harry nor her boyfriend Cory Vitiello. She was due to walk down the aisle with badass lawyer Mike Ross in the climax to Suits season 5. Filming was scheduled for November 13 before the show wrapped for the Christmas break. As she read the script, Meghan thought that if she was getting married, at the very least she—or Rachel—wanted a say in the style of the wedding dress. She contacted Suits costumer Jolie Andreatta and her fr
iend, wedding stylist Jessica Mulroney, for inspiration. The three women met at the Toronto outpost of New York–based bridal store Kleinfeld. The store, which boasts thirty thousand square feet of bridal wear in Manhattan, has a much smaller outlet at the Bay. “I need something that will be comfortable and won’t wrinkle, that’s classic and sort of fairy tale,” explained Meghan. Jessica pulled out an Anne Barge full-skirted V-neck with Swiss dot netting. Meghan tried it on. “It screams Rachel!” she exclaimed.
“We need the dress in two days,” said Jolie. “Can we do this?” In the original script Mike and Rachel were finally going to get hitched. However, after producer Gabriel Macht and series creator Aaron Korsh reviewed the scenario, they decided it would be more plausible if Mike went to jail and told Meghan’s character, a sobbing Rachel Zane, that he cannot marry her—at least not yet. Maybe later…. This was the cliffhanger for the series 5 finale, which was broadcast in March 2016.
After filming her emotional scenes with Mike Ross, Meghan flew to a place about as cold as, if not colder than, Toronto. The California girl headed to Iceland to see the northern lights, along the way discovering the Town of Elves, Álfabærinn, where she couldn’t resist posting a photograph on her Instagram site. From admittedly knowing little about the inner workings of the internet, Meghan was now a social media junkie, posting cute selfies, wry observations—New Year’s resolutions were to “run a marathon, stop biting my nails, stop swearing and relearn French”—and intelligent essays on her burgeoning accounts.
In the eighteen months since it had launched, Meghan had assiduously used The Tig to promote what she felt was important and beautiful: a charming photograph of her mom on Mother’s Day, a recipe for beet pasta with arugula pesto, suggested reading lists, her favorite picture by Australian artist Gray Malin, or a shot of her eating a raw urchin as she stood in the warm Caribbean surf. Meghan was relentless, diligent, and disciplined about creating daily content. She brought in guest writers like PR guru Lucy Meadmore to write about a trip to Costa Rica, her yoga coach Duncan Parviainen, and her Suits costar Abigail Spencer. However, there was a serious underpinning to all this gauze. In an essay titled “Champions of Change,” Meghan wrote passionately about race relations, retelling the family story about the segregation they suffered during a road trip from Ohio to California. “It reminds me of how young our country is,” she told her readers. “How far we’ve come and how far we still have to come. It makes me think of the countless black jokes people have shared in front of me, not realizing I am mixed, unaware that I am the ethnically ambiguous fly on the wall.” With its mix of serious and frivolous, girly and gritty, The Tig had the feel of an upmarket women’s magazine but in Meghan’s distinctive voice. As she said about her baby: “It’s my outlet to say my own words and to share all these things that I find inspiring and exciting, but also attainable.” The baby was bringing home a little bacon, too. Through her shopping program and the promotion of brands such as Birchbox, a subscription beauty box brand, she was now making a little money off the venture. “I would never take ads,” she said. “Or sell a $100 candle. Obnoxious.”
There were times she had to remind herself not to give in to the compulsion to photograph and share every last detail of her life. She had to remember to surrender to the moment, to enjoy real life. As Warren Beatty, the then boyfriend of Madonna, said of the star when she was making the documentary Truth or Dare, “she doesn’t want to live off camera much less talk.” He made that withering remark in the days before social media ran rampant. Now Meghan was one of a generation who, if they were not careful, would only define their existence through social media. As I write, a young boy, now known as the #selfiekid, became an overnight sensation after taking a selfie with singer Justin Timberlake during the 2018 Super Bowl halftime show. After taking the shot, rather than joining in the singing and dancing, being in the present, the young man went back to his phone to review his pictures and thus validate his real experience. Somehow it was a moment that defines the age we live in.
The real world kept intruding, though. In February 2016 the actor flew to Kigale once again to undertake charity work. First, she celebrated Valentine’s Day—not with Cory but with friends in New York’s West Village. It had become a pattern, both ambitious people who were neither willing to give the time or effort to nurture a meaningful relationship. He was immersed in his restaurant chain and television career as a celebrity chef, Meghan in her world as an actor, humanitarian, and fashion personality. It was clear that the writing was on the wall for their two-year relationship, neither being willing to relinquish any part of their professional lives to sustain their romance.
So much of their relationship had been spent in going their separate ways, Meghan in particular spending much of her free time traveling. This time her visit to Africa was arranged not by the United Nations but by World Vision Canada, an Evangelical Christian humanitarian aid charity. Their sister organization, World Vision US, had hit the headlines the previous year with their United States office’s decision not to hire Christians in same-sex marriages. It was a policy position quickly disavowed by their independent Canadian neighbor. The charity’s mission statement reads: “Motivated by our faith in Jesus Christ, World Vision serves alongside the poor and oppressed as a demonstration of God’s unconditional love for all people. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender.”
On the surface it was an odd choice, especially as Meghan seemed to have stalled with United Nations Women and had nothing on her schedule in relation to her role as UN advocate. However, World Vision Canada was eager to harness her celebrity to promote their work in the developing world, notably, bringing clean water to rural villages. Whatever misgivings she may have had, she accepted their invitation to see their work in Rwanda. It was an enthusiastic meeting of minds, recalled Laura Dewar, WVC chief marketing officer. “She’s remarkably approachable. She was very open to a conversation about the kinds of causes that moved her and that she would like to learn more about.”
This was a very different kind of visit than her UN-sponsored trip, where she met female parliamentarians and discussed how they could best promote women’s issues in a mainly rural nation. Her tour this time was much more traditional, top-down benevolence, Meghan watching a well being completed in a village and then helping turn on the mechanism that drew the water to the surface. All the while her friend Gabor Jurina, a fashion photographer, captured the scenes.
Though her visit did not directly focus on gender equality, Meghan quickly grasped the concept that a community’s access to clean water keeps young girls in school because they aren’t walking hours each day to find water for their families. Traditionally, in many rural communities in Rwanda and elsewhere, girls find wood and water, and boys tend the animals.
Later, after taking part in a dance lesson, she visited a school in the Gasabo District and met twenty-five students whose access to a clean water pipeline, installed by World Vision Canada, had transformed their lives. She sat with the children as they painted with watercolors using water drawn from the well, their paint-dipped fingers creating images of their dreams and futures.
When she returned to Toronto she staged a charity art sale, using the children’s art as a basis for the Watercolor Project. The invitation-only function, held on March 22 at the LUMAS gallery in downtown Toronto, was hosted by Meghan and raised more than $15,000, enough to bring clean water to an entire rural community. Applauded as World Vision’s newly minted global ambassador, she told the sixty-strong audience: “Access to clean water allows women to invest in their own businesses and community. It promotes grassroots leadership, and, of course, it reinforces the health and wellness of children and adults. Every single piece of it is so interconnected, and clean water, this one life source, is the key to it all.”
Meghan was now the official face of the organization, short snappy videos of her appearing on the charity’s website, financial statements, and promotional
material. Unlike the United Nations, where Meghan was one of many celebrities working to promote important issues within the organization, here Meghan was the figurehead of this Christian charity, one of Canada’s largest.
In charity and commerce Meghan was now the representative for two storied Canadian organizations, World Vision Canada and Reitmans.
Meghan spun and posed in front of the white backdrop as her friend Gabor Jurina snapped away. Video was also rolling, capturing behind the scenes action as Meghan modeled the four dresses in her first capsule collection for Reitmans. Then she dashed home to write copy about the collection for The Tig.
She waxed rapturous over the Los Angeles–inspired maxi-dress, trilled over the Rachel Zane–esque “little black dress,” and gushed about the white flouncy dress with an asymmetrical hem. The maroon date night dress made Meghan feel “fashion-y and Frenchie.” The day before the April 27 launch of her collection, Meghan hastened to New York to the taping of the finale of The Fashion Fund, a Vogue-sponsored event where designers battle it out to win sponsorship and funding for their line. She was mixing and matching with fashion luminaries, the perfect lead in into the launch of her collection. Meghan was also traveling alone.
In news that shocked none of her friends, she and Cory decided to go their separate ways—as they had been doing in effect for most of their relationship. Nonetheless the breakup still had an effect, a friend of Meghan’s remarking that she felt “down, vulnerable and hurt” by the split. Though there were hints that Cory was seeing other women, the root of the issue was the plain fact that neither side was prepared to make any commitment.
She put on a brave face, grabbed a glass of champagne, and enjoyed the launch of her first fashion collection. It was an immediate hit.
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