“Most of the time that I was in the UK I rarely wore color,” Meghan Markle said in the bombshell 2022 Netflix docuseries, Harry & Meghan. “There was thought in that.” The Duchess of Sussex was explaining why she stuck largely to a wardrobe of muted separates during her time as a working royal, anxious not to call attention to herself by inadvertently clashing with the late Queen or another senior member of the family. “I was like, ‘Well, what’s a color that they’ll probably never wear? Camel? Beige? White?’ So I wore a lot of muted tones, but it also was so I could just blend in. Like, I’m not trying to stand out here.” It was an admission that put Markle’s (cerulean) dress for her final public appearance in the UK in a whole new light.
These days, of course, the Duchess dresses for herself–largely in a quintessentially quiet luxury wardrobe of Toteme dresses, designer denim and Hermès flats. So while the nude shade of the royal’s maxi dress for a school visit in Nigeria with Prince Harry today may have evoked her Kensington Palace days, the virtually backless cut (not to mention that tousled boho braid) clearly semaphored Montecito Meghan.
The couple are in Nigeria for a 72-hour private visit, but the scenes that greeted them on arrival at the Jewels Leading Lights Academy in Abuja bring back memories of their official state tours from years past. In 2018, shortly after their wedding, they were dispatched to Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand for a 16-day state visit, and the frenzy surrounding the royal newlyweds and their fairytale romance reached a fever pitch when they kicked things off by announcing the Duchess’s first pregnancy.
In the six years since: a veritable ocean of water under the bridge. Harry and Meghan are no longer working royals, rather parenting five-year-old Archie and two-year-old Lilibet in California, and overseeing various personal projects (the Invictus Games for Prince Harry, a soon-to-launch lifestyle brand for the Duchess). But while certain aspects of their lives have changed beyond all recognition since they touched down in Sydney to greet flag-waving crowds all those years ago, others remain exactly the same. Everybody still wants to know what Meghan Markle is wearing.