Meghan Markle is a minority shareholder in an up-and-coming handbag brand, Cesta Collective, she said in a new interview.
Speaking to The New York Times after her recent visit to Colombia with Prince Harry, Meghan revealed that she spends much of her time Googling fashion brands and carefully curating her wardrobe to spotlight friends and lesser-known designers.
The interview is Meghan's second this year and the first in which she has discussed her style and approach to fashion since her 2022 Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan.
Cesta Collective specializes in woven bags featuring a basket-weaving technique used by female artisans in Rwanda. The baskets are shipped to Italy, where they are crafted into handbags in limited batches that are sold through the company's e-commerce site.
Cesta was founded by designers Erin Ryder and Courtney Fasciano. The two remain the company's only full-time employees and discovered they had a royal fan in Meghan when the duchess wore one of their bags to a private dinner in 2023.
During her recent Colombian tour, the duchess wore a Cesta cross-body "Panna" bag for her arrival in the city of Cartagena. The bag retails for $750.
The royal became the brand's first outside investor sometime after her split from the monarchy in 2020 and her move to the U.S. with Prince Harry.
"I spend a lot of time just Googling, looking for brands," Meghan told the Times in a Wednesday interview announcing her investment. "When people are online looking for things or reading things, I'm trying to find great new designers, especially in different territories."
The duchess' passion for fashion is well known. Before her marriage, she ran a lifestyle blog called The Tig, which regularly featured fashion write-ups.
After Meghan became engaged to Harry in 2017, she found out how powerful interest in her fashion was, after a handbag brand she wore to one of her first engagements had a spike in sales.
In the years since, she decided to utilize this to the advantage of her friends in the fashion world and for brands that don't get as much coverage as she believes they deserve.
"Times where I know there is a global spotlight, and attention will be given to each detail of what I may or may not be wearing, then I support designers that I have really great friendships with, and smaller, up-and-coming brands that haven't gotten the attention that they should be getting," she said. "That's one of the most powerful things that I'm able to do."
Newsweek approached representatives of the duchess via email for comment.
The interview also revealed that Meghan has between five and 10 brands that she has invested in. At least one of these is vegan coffee brand Clevr Blends.
Speaking of her venture capitalist activities, Meghan said that "investing in them has helped me line up for this chapter where I'm investing in myself."
The duchess soft-launched her own lifestyle brand, American Riviera Orchard, earlier this year but has yet to officially announce any product line associated with it.
James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.
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