The Royal Sussex Tour ended yesterday. Although the tour was only 16 days long, it felt a lot longer because there were so many photos and speeches and nice moments and fashion looks to discuss. I imagine that the diehard Sussex fans and royal reporters will be combing through all of the speeches and moments for weeks to come, to find new angles on old stories. Consider this a preview of that: it seems that for Meghan and Harry’s last event in New Zealand, Harry gave Meghan his coat to wear.
Most women can admit to ‘accidentally’ taking their boyfriend’s oversized t-shirts or hoodies every now and again, particularly in the chillier months. It seems to be a token ‘girlfriend’ trait to enjoy wearing items from your significant other’s wardrobe, and even though she’s now married, the Duchess of Sussex is clearly not immune to the charms.
Her husband Prince Harry – who joined her on a 16-day royal tour of Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific – wore a $698 (GBP £387) black Norrøna ‘Oslo’ coat to walk around the Abel Tasman National Park on Monday. Two days later Meghan was spotted in The Redwoods forest in Rotorua, New Zealand, sporting the exact same jacket, albeit a bit oversized on her slender frame. And nobody really noticed she’d recycled a look from the Duke’s wardrobe.
God knows Meghan packed enough trench coats and windbreakers and blazers for the tour, so I have to think that she originally planned to just do the appearance in her Mother jeans and maybe a light sweater. And then she got cold, so Harry took off his coat and gave it to her, like a gentleman. I honestly think that’s one of the nicest things a man can do, to literally give you their sweater/coat/jacket when you’re cold.
Vanity Fair had a nice write-up on the Royal Sussex Tour too, basically saying that Meghan is finding her own path to being a duchess, and that she and Harry just seemed very “real” and very Instagram-friendly. Go here to read.
Photos courtesy of Backgrid.
I typically don’t like the royals. I find them useless and the idea of elevating someone to this level of adulation makes my teeth itch. But I like Meghan and, by extension, I now like Harry, too.
I have the same dilemma. No time for them and their ridiculous and greedy entitlement and I’m really not keen on Harry but I do very much like and appreciate what Meghan’s brought to the royal table. That I find Harry a little bit more tolerable now is solely down to Meghan.
I also have this dilemma. I’m am no fan of royals, but I do like Meghan (liked her back from Suits) so Im a bit torn….
I like them and read books about them for decades. If I had to pay for them, I’m sure I’d feel different.
Royal journalists said this tour broke records for tweets , it beat the royal wedding and Harry and Meghan had thousands of people at single tour stops.
They had larger crowds than William and Kate, on tour.
Yes, quite phenomenal. One journalist who had been on tour with the Pope said that the Popes tour was like the Regional Games and the Harry and Meghan tour was like the Olympics. I just hope that the other royals do not get jealous of H & M and start making life difficult for them.
Love this! And I actually love how the full outfit looks on her.
Glad the tour is over so they can both rest.
Absolutely. I want them to lie low for a bit. Over exposure can be a problem.
Cute look, and it fits her like a winter coat should, but the coat looks like it would be a little snug on Harry. If she’s cold enough to need a winter coat, then why are her sleeves pushed up though? I woke up chilly, and put my boyfriends sweatshirt on. We all usually do things like this
I’d imagine the sleeves are rolled up because that’s the only way they wouldn’t be covering her hands otherwise as they’re likely much too long for her.
She probably pushed them up to her elbows to get keep them from constantly rolling back down considering how oversized the jacket is on her.
Source: I’m 5′ 1″ and have experienced this myself many, many times.
I never noticed until that last photo the height difference between Harry and Meghan
Same here. She’s tiny without heels.
Just after the engagement people were saying that she is like a tiny bird.
Yes, it is very sweet but I can’t get behind rolling up sleeves on every coat, particularly a parka. It’s funny to me that it’s parka weather for her torso but Spring around the area of her arms.
Is this photo taken in Rotorua? The last time I was there (October/November 2017), and every other time, come to think of it, it was really steamy, and more especially near the geysers. Perhaps she feels the cold, though, but like me, doesn’t like her wrists covered? Just a thought.
I’ve only been there in Spring myself and not sure where she is here. Perhaps Harry would do well to carry around a parka vest. I love mine (in New England).
I’m like that as well-I push the sleeves up to my elbow on everything-really have to make a conscious effort not to do it with suits and nice jackets. I hate that feeling on my wrists.
Queen Letizia is always rolling up blouses and jacket sleeves too. A year or two ago she started getting sleeves tailored to 3/4 length.
– Maybe she warmed up a bit after having the jacket on.
– It could be chilly, but not freezing. It’s equivalent to wearing a jacket and not doing the zipper up.
– She often wears blazers and coats with the sleeves rolled or pushed up. She has small arms, so maybe it’s easy to do that.
This is so sweet. Prince Harry is so in love, I like it!
I think she was wearing the same blue sweater she wore earlier in the day (with the Givenchy skirt) so it was short sleeved, so I can imagine that she may have been a bit chilly.
I love the comment about “harry joining her on the tour.” What was the quote from JFK – “I am the man who accompanied Jacqueline Kennedy to Paris”?
Haha! Yes, I thought about that, too, given that if she was not married to the prince…
Maybe the sleeves are too long and so she pushed them up?
I don’t understand the fawning over these women.
Kate has never achieved anything in her life and Meghan was an “aging” C-List actress two years ago yet y’all acting like she found a cure to cancer and that she had Grace Kelly’s career.
Really, you don’t understand it? I call B.S. Any woman (or more specifically, any woman who would post on a celebrity blog) knows how deep those Cinderella tropes go, and how much they still factor in how we view femininity, beauty, and success. These are two “ordinary” women who made the ultimate “good marriages” from a traditional point of view. How many stories involving women have been about “marrying well?” Not just fairy tales, Mrs. Bennett would shit herself if her 5 daughters could have “risen so high”. Marrying well is the ultimate “happily ever after.” We all now know how problematic that trope is, how much it objectifies women and negates their personalities and their personal agency over their own lives. It’s fascinating to see how two women react when thrust into that very storyline that so many of us grew up with (inescapable if you watched Disney). So the fairy tale stuff’s not real, we know that. But the trappings are still beautiful. I find it ridiculous that you imply that there’s some “merit” to becoming Cinderella (Kate hasn’t cured cancer and Meghan is an aging C-list actress). Would it be better if Kate were an oncologist, and Meghan were Meryl Streep? Would Meryl Streeps and oncologists want to take on such an antiquated role, even for love? Two women fell in love with princes. One of them chased her Prince for 10 years, and did basically nothing with her life but make herself available to him. One of them forged a career in an industry where 99% of people who try, fail, where women are often treated like shit and then discarded. Both of them went into their marriages knowing exactly what they would be getting–Kate knew from her Long Wait and Meghan at least dealt with the sharks of Hollywood, so she knew what swimming with sharks would entail. I, for one, find it interesting that they chose their roles with their eyes wide open. And we get to see the price Cinderella pays for her neverending Night at the Ball.
Amen lanne. Great response about the complex reasons we are spectators.
But going back to avalita’s point – your response certainly explains the interest but not necessarily the adulation.
Don’t we always (as a culture) show adulation toward those who reach the pinnacles that culture deems important? I didn’t even mention the importance of the Diana mythology that those two women are now embraced within. Ignoring that is like watching a Disney movie, seeing the toys and the merch everywhere, and then saying, “I don’t know why everyone’s so into Elsa from Frozen. She’s a hot mess to me.” Women who fit the right tropes are in the position to be adored. But sad part is, they aren’t adored for being themselves; they’re adored for fulfilling the role. Then, they are watched every second to make sure they fulfil that role to the exact specifications of the watcher the whole time, who then crows when said woman fails, or breaks a protocol the watcher created. Also, it’s Ye Olde Schadenfreude. What’s more titillating then praising a woman to the skies, then watching her fall back to earth and applauding as she falls?
I think it depends on what you personally deem important. A certain percentage of the population thinks royalty is important and admires the royal family but we have also seen that many others out there object to the unearned privileges or are altogether indifferent to the whole concept, including the characters involved.
I think your comment about women who fit the “right trope” being in a position to be adored is exactly the issue that some of the the previous commenters are getting at.
Not everyone agrees that being born into a particular family or crossing paths/falling in love with a prince is the sort of trope they admire or even want for themselves. After all, they are both to some degree a matter of circumstance and timing that aren’t available to everyone.
I feel there is a difference between liking what you see in someone you don’t know personally and adoring someone and that’s what people are questioning. And as you rightly point out, it’s problematic in that it often sets people up for a fall when they “fail” to deliver on the unrealistically high expectations
One of my favorite posts ever: thought provoking. Thanks!
@lanne excellent thought provoking posts.
Lanne—so much wow. If you were to write an update to Naomi Wolf’s “The Beauty Myth”, I would be one of your first customers!
Pray tell, what do you count as achievements? Like, what deserves attention and what is directly below that bar? Very curious.
It’s the career after the marriage that I’m interested in, she will out-work and out-accomplish all royals before her, on par with Diana is my prediction.
Lanne…👏👏👏
Yes! Lanne👏👏👏x1,000!!
I too understand the interest but not the adulation. The irony of course is that Meghan’s being hailed as a feminist and a shining example of an empowered woman….who has achieved this status because she married a Prince. However, as the BRF has been headed by the epitomy of an empowered woman, aka the Queen, if she follows her lead she can make a huge difference to the monarchy. She is literally just “in the door” and is pregnant and will be going on mat leave soon and starting a family so she obs has other matters to focus on for the time being. However, my hope is that she’ll contribute a great deal to a modern monarchy with Harry by her side as an equal.
Empowered? Not sure about that for Liz Regina. To me, her greatest achievement has been her sense of duty. She wouldn’t be queen at all if her father had had sons, and she would have accepted her place as a Princess Royal with grace. What I find interesting about Meghan is that we will get a better sense of whether or not the British Monarchy can accept change. Will she ultimately disappear into the role that others create for her,m or will she be allowed to create her own path w/Harry? I think they’ll be able to create their own path to an extent, so long as they don’t step too far out of the Royal mold. Perhaps she’ll follow a Queen Rania model of a woman who’s able to espouse women’s causes within a patriarchal society, so long as she stays in her lane. She’s an asset to the Royal Family in that they can point to her as proof that they are modernizing, but they don’t have to make any real fundamental change to they way they do things. And even in her own lane, she’s still in position to do a lot of great things. Meghan seems smart and savvy enough to realize her limitations and her strengths. There will always be folks who grumble she’s “uppity” because she speaks at all. I made the mistake of looking at the DMs comments after an article on her speeches. Sheesh, folks be racist!
She is a woman of color, who has entered an exclusively white racist, imperialist space, and is living her best life. She arguably has more power and privilege now as a Duchess, than any other brown woman nearing forty and hoping for a career in Hollywood after a successful tv show. If you don’t see how that’s empowering, I don’t know what to tell you.
She’s one of those people who look great in anything. She’s always cute and elegant. I really like them together.
why do people care so much that Meghan has fans that people like her so sorry that this site is not as negatively and nasty towards her like some you people would want .