Heartbreaking: the worst British hate outlet was right about something. Last month, the Duchess of Sussex was seen having lunch with Chloe Malle, the new editor-in-chief of American Vogue. Royal media was abuzz with speculation that Meghan would soon cover Vogue. Then the Daily Mail (of all outlets) reported that Meghan would actually appear on a Harper’s Bazaar cover. Well, they were right! Meghan covers the latest issue of Bazaar. While I’m mad about the photo chosen for the cover, that’s only because there were so many better shots in this editorial. I would have loved to see one of the black-and-white pics turned into a cover. Anyway, the interview is great – go here to read. Meghan seems more relaxed than ever. I haven’t looked at the British reaction to anything yet, but I assume that they’re about to have a month-long tantrum. Some highlights from Bazaar:
She met with girls from a local STEM academy in LA: The 11- and 12-year-olds, in their purple-and-gray uniforms, are unaware of who they are about to meet. It’s a warm September day, and I can hear them murmuring outside the tent. A golf cart pulls up, the gravel crunching beneath its tires. “The Duchess of Sussex,” someone in the scrum announces. Meghan descends, dressed in wide-leg trousers, a silk blouse, and a small pair of pavé-diamond studs by the Ukrainian brand Guzema. They were a gift from her husband, Prince Harry, picked up on a recent trip to Kyiv with his Invictus Games Foundation. [Meghan] lives a life accompanied by a level of scrutiny that every tween girl imagines is always present. Except for Meghan, it is very real. “I don’t know how any woman could see a young girl and not see herself in her, especially at that age,” Meghan tells me later.
The LA Riots: “It was cinematic in a way I don’t think many people can understand. … It was so visual. Smoke everywhere. People were driving around with the back of their SUVs open. I saw people running with boxes of diapers, smashed windows, so much fire and ash falling from the sky that it felt like snow.” As we sit at the Polo Lounge, the city is currently at the center of a national fight over the enforcement of this administration’s immigration policy and the continued deployment of the National Guard to urban areas. But the city, Meghan says many times over the course of our conversation, is “resilient.” “It was scary, but L.A. survived it.”
She likes to work: “I like the community of work and the connection. I think a lot of it is in my DNA.” It’s an attitude in contrast with the current trend of valorizing a soft life—that is, a life without work outside the home, with an emphasis on ease, which requires its own level of hidden labor. “You should do what works for you,” Meghan says diplomatically. For her, though, “when people start to see your work ethic and really understand how dedicated you are to things—how you are in one place, I believe, is how you are in other places. So for me, that’s how I show up when I do potlucks at my kids’ school, that’s how I show up when putting a party together for my friend who just had a baby, that’s how I show up in my business.”
What she’s learned from her mistakes: “You learn not to do it again. If it all goes swimmingly, you don’t learn from it. If you don’t learn anything, you’re not going to grow…. I’m a mom with kids at that age where they are constantly learning something new. I watch them face things that feel completely insurmountable every day. But you can remember and say, ‘I know it seems really hard right now, but trust me, that’s going to come so easily soon.’ I can give myself the same grace as a founder. There’s no such thing as perfect. I, too, get to make mistakes. There’s also not a lot of fun in trying to be perfect. So why try to do that if you want to have fun?”
Does she compartmentalize work and family? “My office is right by the kitchen, and I love that I can work from home. It’s a great luxury.” Her daughter, Lilibet, “comes and sits on my lap when I’m in the middle of the meeting, whether it’s about P and L for my brand or it’s about something creative.” When I ask Meghan what she hopes her kids see when they see her working, she tells me, “I hope they see the value of being brave. They saw it when the jam was just a pot on the stove, bubbling. When you’re young. I think you are a little bit more fearless. As we get older, we lose some of that.”
Attending the Balenciaga show during Paris Fashion Week, the first with Pierpaolo Piccioli at the helm. The two have known each other for years. “I was excited for him,” she says. “I reached out and I said, ‘Happy to come and support you.’ We kept it a secret, and it was really fun.”
Her husband. “He loves me so boldly, fully, and he also has a different perspective because he sees media that I wouldn’t. No one in the world loves me more than him, so I know he’s always going to make sure that he has my back.” With Harry, Meghan explains, “you have someone who just has this childlike wonder and playfulness. I was so drawn to that, and he brought that out in me. That’s translated into every part of our life. Even in business, I want us to play and have fun and explore and be creative.”
The LA fires: “I saw homes where I used to have sleepovers reduced to ash.” Meghan and Harry were both spotted in the aftermath, volunteering with chef José Andrés and his World Central Kitchen nonprofit. “It was less about just giving someone a handout, but giving it to them with dignity,” she says. “Can you treat it with the same level of care that you would if you had lost everything?”
Interspersed between Meghan’s quotes, her friends talked to Bazaar about how she’s a great person. Kelly Zajfen and Serena Williams were quoted at length, which was nice. It’s honestly been a few years since she’s done a magazine interview, and in that time, she’s learned how to open up a bit more. I didn’t blame her for being guarded before – she was trying to survive with everyone climbing up her ass 24-7 – but her interviews were never dishy reads. She comes across as more centered and comfortable in her own skin here. The smaller details are cool too – lunch at the Beverly Hills, an A-lister coming over to talk to her, the Ukrainian earrings, the surreal quality of being one of the most famous women in the world while simultaneously wanting to eat French fries in the middle of Networking Central.
Cover & IG courtesy of Harper’s Bazaar.
