Mental health, cooking and a very much for-profit fashion sideline: the customary elements of a Harry and Meghan tour are evident in the current Not the Royal Visit to Australia. The amalgam of public persona (royal), money-making side-hustles (brand Meghan) and mental health awareness (brand Harry) is now the standard format for the pair’s activities, but it’s still weird.
This is a private visit, except it’s not; and it’s by non-royals, except the couple sport their titles, minus the HRH, though Meghan is now Call Me Meg. It sums up the hybrid that is Harry and Meghan: not-royal, but emphatically not not-royal; profit-making, but with enough philanthropy to channel the late Princess Diana.
The royal aspect was evident when Harry, wearing a chestful of medals from his decade in the Army, laid a wreath at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra where they play the last post every single day and promoted his Invictus Games like a pro.
(It is shallow of me to notice, but the shots of Harry from above showed actual baldness.) Royal activity, tick. The trip to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne where the couple had selfies with children with cancer and took part in a therapy session. Royal Activity, tick.
Meghan’s visit to a homeless women’s shelter. Royal activity, tick, but…hang on a minute. We have learned that the Duchess of Sussex has signed up with the AI fashion platform OneOff, which allows users to identify and purchase the clothes worn by, well, Meghan. She has a new page on the site with her Australian wardrobe looks already online.
So we learn that her outfit worn at the Royal Children’s Hospital and McAuley women’s homeless centre was a $1,250 navy dress from Sydney designer Karen Gee, which she paired with Dior’s $1,000 “Dioressence” pointed-toe pumps. She had yellow gold Puffy Heart earrings by Los Angeles brand Real Fine Studio at $1,118 and a Tiffany gold bracelet. You know, at one time you had to get a newspaper fashion editor to identify this stuff; now the Duchess does it for you. Win and very much win.
The war memorial/children’s hospital business is old-style royal tour,
This is a marvellous example of the symbiosis between the not-royal and the quasi-royal, whereby Meghan dresses to kill for her philanthropic princessy work, but monetises the wardrobe for the saps who want her look.
They’ll also be looking up her outfit for an appearance on Australian MasterChef. One can only pray it was spared her recipe for pasta from her TV series, which, I shudder to recall, featured pouring a boiling kettle onto a panful of spaghetti and adding cherry tomatoes.
The war memorial/children’s hospital business is old-style royal tour, but the mental health aspect takes the visit squarely into Harry’s very own territory — except it is also Prince William’s. That is to say, he talked about mental health on a discussion panel. This is a subject where the trivial and the very serious are fatally intertwined to the extent that Harry focused on the importance of therapy for fathers before and after their children’s birth.
Three in five Australian fathers surveyed said that no health professional asked about their mental health during pregnancy or in the 12 months after birth. That, boys, is because the focus at this time is properly on the babies and the mothers, who may suffer from actual, biology-related post-natal depression, not on fathers feeling out of it. But for Harry it was a chance to tell the audience, “You’re not alone. For me, [going to therapy] was a sign of strength, not weakness.” Oh please.
The feel-good element is followed by the ruthlessly monetised part
But the feel-good element is followed by the ruthlessly monetised part. So today we will see Harry’s guest appearance at the corporate InterEdge Summit conference in Melbourne, where tickets cost up to £1,250. A “virtual ticket allowing on-demand access to the prince’s speech” costs £260.
Meghan, for her part, will appear at the Her Best Life retreat at Coogee Beach on Saturday. It’s a women-only weekend “retreat” and tickets for the weekend cost up to £1,680. It’s been billed as “a girls’ weekend like no other” for 300 women and it’s hosted by the Her Best Life podcast. It promises, “This is going to be an unforgettable weekend designed for women who want to reconnect, recharge, laugh, learn and have some serious fun.” There will be therapy sessions. Obviously. And Meghan will be charging tables to have pictures with her.
Meanwhile, an actual royal tour is very much a talking point: the King’s visit to the US for the 250th anniversary of American independence. Just think, if it weren’t for Megxit, Charles might well be joking that his fragrant American daughter-in-law had cemented the Special Relationship. Meghan could actually have been a diplomatic asset. Think of what might have been. Then look at the pair now.
Melanie McDonagh is a columnist at The Standard
