Very exciting news: the Duchess of Sussex is back in the kitchen again, on Instagram, flogging jam.
It won’t be her kitchen. It’s not the one she used for her lifestyle series With Love, Meghan (this one is smaller and whiter and there are different handles on the cabinets) but it’s also not the one featured in a recent Instagram post to celebrate her eighth wedding anniversary. That one is most probably the Sussexes’ Montecito kitchen because it has those compulsory pointless and never-used copper pots hanging above a giant oak-topped central island. Anyway, she’s back in an aspirational, all-white, flower-filled kitchen, returning earlier than anticipated to the subject she once hoped would make her fortune: jam.
Her latest Insta post is a bit of light jam promotion gently sprinkled with some personal sharings. “My husband loves the raspberry,” Meghan says. “Lil loves the strawberry and Arch likes both. And I like the marmalade.”
Meghan posted on Instagram to celebrate eight years of marriage to Prince HarryChris Allerton
Here we go again, you might say, yet if you’ve been following the As Ever brand story closely you will know that things have subtly moved on. Yes, the duchess has done jam (actually fruit spreads, as they don’t contain the right quantity of sugar to qualify as jams), and it didn’t quite work out as planned, but happily she is not giving up that easily. Yes, As Ever was partnered with Netflix and in March, months after the streaming service dropped With Love, Meghan, the two parted company, so As Ever no longer has Netflix’s financial backing. And yes, after rumours that the “jams” had been an astonishing success, it was revealed that there were jars — and candles and sprinkles — stacked high in two storage rooms on Netflix’s Hollywood site, shifting about as fast as Cliff Richard Christmas calendars.
But if we’ve learnt one thing about Meghan since she and Harry moved to Montecito, it is that she’s determined. While she styles herself as “an entrepreneur and female founder”, the mission is name fame and recognition as a person of influence in circles that count. Until As Ever is a name whispered in smart circles and the tasteful gift du jour is her raspberry spread, Meghan will not rest. What she wants is to go for brunch with Mr and Mrs Ted Sarandos and find they are serving As Ever marmalade on tiny bits of toast (come to think of it, would tapenade have been a better idea?). She wants to be told, while round at Gwyneth and Brad’s, that not a day passes when one of them does not reach for a jar. And she wants for that to turn into runaway sales that put her name up there with Gwyneth’s and Martha Stewart’s and maybe Gordon Ramsay’s — without the swearing and football roots.
So now, because a lifestyle show on Netflix has not achieved that, she is trying other avenues and we’re not talking about walking on to the set of MasterChef Australia as if she were the resurrected Julia Child. No, we’re talking about playing her joker, the card up her sleeve that she has reminded us many times is off limits. Harry and the children. Royalty in exile. The reason she was given a Netflix show in the first place.
This is the part that’s new. True, we were thrown the odd scrap during the course of With Love, Meghan. We’d discover that Harry couldn’t stick lobster and once or twice we’d get a glancing mention of the children’s tastes (Lilibet requests chia seeds on her pancakes, naturally). But now we’re into “Lil” and “Arch” territory (hoping for “Hazza” in the weeks to come). It’s a slightly different vibe from the “I just happen to be married to someone called Harry” mood that kicked off the With Love, Meghan series and that has informed everything she’s done to date.
Meghan in her walk-in wardrobe with LilibetInstagram
It might not seem so significant were it not for it coming hot on the heels of Meghan sharing a mirror selfie of herself and Lilibet in Meghan’s walk-in wardrobe with the caption “Mama’s little helper”. Everything anyone high-profile posts on Instagram is bristling with significance and this was no exception. Should As Ever’s spreads not make it into the homes of the rich and famous pretty soon, fashion is plan B. In fact it’s probably plan B even if they do. In tandem with becoming a tastemaker in the home Meghan has set her sights on having her own brand of clothing and accessories — and why not a mama-and-daughter range, kicked off with Lil posing back to the camera in something tonally matching Mama’s look? With Love, Meghan was a showcase for her personal style — minimal, clean, smart, safe — and since then she’s taken to monetising her wardrobe choices and turning up at fashion shows. It’s jam today but could it be jeans tomorrow? Great jeans in the video, by the way.