Meghan reveals why she didn't wear colour as a royal: 'I don’t want to embarrass the family'
Meghan Markle has revealed the impact her time as a senior working member of the Royal Family had on her fashion choices in her and Prince Harry’s new documentary for Netflix.
The first three episodes of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s highly anticipated six-part docuseries, Harry & Meghan, dropped on Netflix on Thursday and already viewers are getting a big insight into how joining the Royal Family impacted Meghan's life.
One change was the way Meghan looked at her wardrobe and style, and how that would come across to both the public and press, she says in the documentary.
Speaking about their first ever royal walkabout in 2017, shortly after they announced their engagement, Harry, 38, revealed he was very little help in the wardrobe department for Meghan, 41, who had never even heard of a walkabout, much less knew how to dress for one.
“I could talk her through as much as I knew from my own experience and what I’d seen,” says Harry in the third episode, "but the piece I really didn’t know about was the style.”
Read more: How Meghan's wardrobe has changed since leaving the Royal Family
“What a woman needed to do, and how they needed to dress and all that,” he adds.
“No, you'd be there with the scissors like, 'Guys, be ready. We have five minutes,'” recalled Meghan. “And I was like, ‘Should I wear these earrings? Are these by a British designer? I just ordered these online. Is this good? Wait, my tag's on. Cut the tag.’”
“And then the zip breaks,” adds Harry. “The whole thing was just ridiculous.”
Meghan revealed that she had to pin the zipper with a safety pin at the last minute before they headed out to meet well wishers for their first engagement in Nottingham.
But that wasn’t the only change to the duchess’ wardrobe.
Later in the documentary, she explains why her style favoured more neutral tones when she first joined the Royal Family, and that it was a conscious decision.
“Most of the time I was in the UK, I rarely wore colour,” she says in the interview section of the third episode. “There was thought in that.”
Read more: Why does the Princess of Wales wear so much red?
“To my understanding, you can’t ever wear the same colour as Her Majesty, if there’s a group event,” Meghan added. “But you also can’t be wearing the same colour as one of the other, more senior members of the family.”
“So I was like, ‘What’s a colour that they’ll probably never wear? Camel? Beige? White?’”
Meghan goes on to explain that the decision was also made so that she wouldn’t cause a stir at public events, and just “fit in”.
Read more: The 12 biggest revelations from Harry and Meghan's tell-all Netflix documentary
“I wore a lot of muted tones, but it was also so I could just blend in,” she explains. “I’m not trying to stand out here.”
“There’s no version of me joining this family, and trying to not do everything I could to fit in," she continues. “I don’t want to embarrass the family.”
The documentary later shows one of Harry and Meghan’s first red carpet events following their decision to “step back” as senior members of the Royal Family, where Meghan poignantly chose to wear a bright red gown, and marked a new direction for her post-royal wardrobe.
The Caroline Herrera dress, worn to the Salute To Freedom Gala in New York in November 2021, also beared her toned arms, something which is rare for members of the Royal Family to do.
However, Prince Harry clears up that out of the several so-called royal “protocols” that Meghan was accused of breaking during her time as a working royal, most of them “were completely made up” by the press.
