This August will see the release of Cookie Queens, a documentary that perhaps only Meghan Markle (and Prince Harry’s) Archewell Productions could have executive produced. It is about the joys and pains of participating in the $800 million Girl Scout Cookies industry. This is, after all, the same woman who built her own business around wonkily homemade goods that, according to her, always served as a symbol of something far greater. “The perfect imperfection that comes from human connection,” as she once described a haphazardly assembled Christmas cracker on With Love, Meghan.
“[It] is probably the cutest at the festival,” said the Duchess of Sussex while introducing the project at Sundance earlier this year, “but I’m also going to go out on a limb and say it is one of the most powerful and meaningful depictions of something that is an American tradition and rooted in nostalgia.” If Megan Markle’s involvement in the documentary was characteristic, so too was the outfit she wore to a screening at The Grove in Los Angeles last night: an oversized Valentino blazer, crew-neck Anine Bing T-shirt, and wide-legged Tracy James jeans in varying shades of cream, plus some Cartier jewels—precisely the sort of look that, thanks to the post-Palace Meghan, has come to be described as “Montecito casual.”
And yet, scan downwards and the formula begins to glitch, with the Duchess upgrading the Hermès Oran sandals that tend to transport her everywhere—most recently between Portugal and Princess Diana’s childhood home—for the heritage house’s Santorini sandals, which feature the same signature “H” cut-out across the toes, but with an adjustable ankle strap. It’s hardly a radical departure—she hasn’t suddenly stepped out in heelless Pleasers, or anything—but perhaps that’s the best evidence yet of just how immutable her personal brand has become: an ankle strap has got us talking.
