Almost one year ago exactly, the Duchess of Sussex wore a red dress to the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Gala. The Carolina Herrera dress was actually a repeat – she had worn the exact same dress with a big, flouncy, detachable train a few years prior. Meghan looked sleek and pretty at the 2024 event, she sat at one of the central tables and she had a lovely night out for charity. The British tabloids had a multi-week meltdown over it. In my coverage, I noted that we were on Day 4, Day 5, Day 6 of the “Meghan wore a red dress” controversy. They were STILL complaining about it two months later.

Well, you see where I’m going with this “remember when” story. Meghan’s Paris Fashion Week appearance has got ‘em shook. They’re panicked and angry and confused. How could she look so good? How could she be welcomed in Paris? Why isn’t she begging to come back to the UK? Why does she live in a California mansion? How could Anna Wintour greet her with such friendliness? How can we make Meghan’s Balenciaga experience into something nasty and unpleasant? Well, the Daily Mail did a double-whammy. They contacted some PR experts to analyze Meghan’s PFW appearance, and they also got Amanda Platell to write a nasty column.

According to multiple PR experts, Meghan’s appearance this weekend wasn’t one that was perfectly executed – in fact, it seemed far from it.

‘Paris Fashion Week was Megan’s deliberate re-entry into the cultural elite,’ Sarah Schmidt, President of Interdependence Public Relations, told Daily Mail exclusively. Schmidt shared that Meghan is ‘showing that she’s creating a brand and legacy on her own without the royal rule book.’

But the event she chose to attend may not have been the right choice, according to the expert. ‘This move signals ambition and independence, but the execution was tone deaf,’ Schmidt told Daily Mail. ‘Balenciaga’s shadow still lingers and aligning with this controversy undercuts her credibility,’ she continued. The luxury brand came under fire in 2022 for its campaign, which featured children holding teddy bears that were outfitted in bondage-style leather outfits.

‘For a public figure who’s tied her brand to compassion and advocacy, association matters. It was the right stage, wrong storyline,’ Schmidt said. ‘The goal for her brand moving forward will be credibility and consistency, not contradiction.’

[From The Daily Mail]

How convenient that the Mail found a “PR expert” who parroted one of the central criticisms featured in the Mail! “But Balenciaga had a controversy a few years ago!” And? The label has hired new people, including a new designer. This was Meghan helping Pierpaolo Piccioli and Balenciaga draw a line under the Demna Gvasalia era. As for Platell’s column, obviously she’s arguing that no one can ever do anything anywhere close to the Pont de l’Alma, where Princess Diana sustained fatal injuries in 1997. They’re really riding this lie that Meghan filmed “by” or “near” l’Alma, which she did not. From Platell’s column:

Does anyone really believe it was coincidence rather than cynical attention-seeking that Meghan’s first solo European trip as Duchess of Sussex was a visit to Paris? The romantic city that Princess Diana loved above all, and the one where she died? Or that it was mere happenstance, after Megs attended a Balenciaga fashion show, that she filmed then posted on social media the late-night, chauffeur-driven journey along the Seine back to her hotel – a route parallel to the one taken on the other side of the river by Diana on the night of her fatal crash.

Why, of all the countless five-star luxury hotels in Paris, did Meghan choose to stay in the Hotel Plaza Athenee just four minutes from the Pont de l’Alma tunnel where Diana’s car crashed? These questions all leave us wondering whether Meghan’s Paris trip was a naked bid to invoke an echo of the mother-in-law she never met, to establish herself in some deluded way as the heir to Diana.

Did she have her Netflix crew in tow to record every moment? I wouldn’t put it past her. Shamefully, Meghan sent her 4.5million Instagram followers pictures of herself with her stilettoed feet up on the seat in the back of her minivan, hauntingly close to where the Princess died.

And this leads us to question of where Harry was during this PR disaster? Why was Meghan making a solo visit? Why, come to think of it, is the Prince appearing less and less in her social media posts, after having been virtually written out of her Netflix series With Love, Meghan? Was Prince Harry sulking at home feeding the organic chooks, unaware of the trip and his wife’s intentions? Surely even dim-witted Harry would have cautioned his wife a trip to Paris was an unwise move, likely to provoke ridicule and anger?

[From The Daily Mail]

Yeah, Meghan needs to sue all of these people. I know Harry’s trial against the Mail starts in a few months, but still. Sue these f–kers. “Why did she stay in a hotel close to the tunnel” Jesus Christ – the Hotel Plaza Athenee is one of the grandest hotels in Paris, it’s where most celebrities stay when they’re in town for PFW. This column, more than anything else, really shows how angry the British media is that Meghan went to Paris specifically, and even more specifically, to Paris Fashion Week. They’re incandescent with jealousy and trying to make the visit as toxic as possible so that she’ll never step foot in Paris again.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.