From left, Britain’s Camilla Duchess of Cornwall, Kate Duchess of Cambridge, Meghan Duchess of Sussex and Prince Harry attend the annual Trooping the Colour Ceremony in London. (Source: AP/file)
Listen to this articleYour browser does not support the audio element.
The first volume of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s much-anticipated docuseries, Harry and Meghan, was released yesterday and, as expected, it featured the Duke and Duchess of Sussex getting candid about their time as working members of the British royal family. As such, in one scene in episode three, Meghan opened up about the reason she was often seen wearing neutral hues during her public outing with other members of the family.
You have exhausted your monthly limit of free stories.
“Most of the time that I was in the UK, I rarely wore colour,” she recalled, dressed in a lavender sweaterand a matching skirt. “There was thought in that.”
Revealing the royal protocol, she said, “To my understanding, you can’t ever wear the same colour as Her Majesty (Queen Elizabeth II) if there’s a group event. But then, you also should never be wearing the same colour as one of the other more senior members of the family.”
The former Suits actor added, “So I was like, ‘Well, what’s a colour that they’ll probably never wear? Camel? Beige? White?’”
As pictures of Meghanwearing muted colour ensembles flashed on the screen, Meghan explained that she was just trying to “blend in” with the royal family. “Like I’m not trying to stand out here. So there’s no version of me joining this family and trying to not do everything I could to fit in. I don’t want to embarrass the family,” she said in the series, the second part of which will release next Thursday.
Meghan may have addressed her sartorial choices in the royal familyfor the first time, Renée Kuo—the managing director of Debrett’s, the authority on British peerage and etiquette told Town & Country in 2018 that Meghan’s decision to wear subtle colours could be out of respect for the late monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. “Some have speculated that her latest outings in blush and neutral colours are a sign of respect to The Queen, so as not to upstage or outshine the monarch. At Debrett’s, we believe that understatement, a quality highly valued by the British, is frequently synonymous with good manners. But it may be because… the duchess knows she looks darn good in them.”
