Kate Middleton’s Former Stylist Launches New Business, and the Meghan Sussex Similarities Are Hard to Miss

Natasha Archer spent 15 years standing in the shadows of Kate Middleton. She carried the blue polka dot dress to the Lindo Wing after Prince George was born. She helped shape Kate’s tour wardrobe from Canada in 2016 to Pakistan in 2019. And now she has launched her own styling business with an Instagram feed that looks suspiciously like someone else’s mood board.

The Daily Mail ran the headline: “Has Kate’s former assistant fallen under Meghan’s spell?” The article noted that Archer’s new promotional material features cream backgrounds, minimalist visuals, musings about “creating something elevated,” and a stylised cypher logo that echoes the palm tree emblem of Meghan Sussex’s As Ever brand. Even the language feels borrowed: “It begins with understanding. Is refined through detail and brought together to create something elevated.” Meghan has written about wanting to “elevate the everyday into the exceptional.”

The timing is very awkward. Archer made her Instagram public after leaving Kensington Palace in July, 2025. We reported that she was following Meghan’s account, As Ever, Meghan’s makeup artist Daniel Martin, close friends Abigail Spencer and Delfina Blaquier, and various fan accounts dedicated to Meghan’s fashion. She later unfollowed dozens of them after the story gained traction.

The Woman Behind the Wardrobe

Archer is no novice. She joined the royal household in 2007 as a personal assistant to Princes William and Harry. After William married Kate, Archer became one of her closest and most trusted aides. Being one of a select few to visit Kate at the Lindo Wing after each birth marked Archer as deeply trusted. A promotion to stylist followed in 2014, and she soon became the mastermind behind Kate’s wardrobe.

In 2019, Archer was invited to become a Member of the Royal Victorian Order for her services to the Royal Family. She married Getty royal photographer Chris Jackson. She stood by Kate through the cancer diagnosis, the treatment, and the remission announcement last September. By all accounts, she was loyal, discreet, and exceptionally good at her job.

This was not Archer’s first time being rewarded for that loyalty. In June 2024, outlets including the Daily Mail reported that Kate had gifted her a nearly £6,000 Cartier watch and promoted her to a more senior role. That gesture was framed as an expression of gratitude and trust. She later split from Chris Jackson, and public reports say she left Kensington Palace in July 2025 to begin a new chapter.

So why does her new venture look like it belongs in Montecito rather than Kensington Palace?

The Obsession Theory

The online speculation has been intense. One interpretation holds that Archer’s former employer tasked her with monitoring Meghan and her social circle, making the current copying accusations somewhat ironic. Another view suggests Archer knew exactly what she was doing when she deleted Meghan-related accounts from her Instagram after being discovered. The deletion itself reads as an acknowledgment.

The implications run deeper. Archer reportedly spent years assembling style references featuring Meghan for Kate’s consideration, effectively using the Duchess of Sussex as a fashion benchmark. Archer has been immersed in Meghan’s aesthetic for more than five years. Launching a business that mirrors that same look is not a sudden shift. It flows naturally from her professional history.

A more direct reading is also possible. Archer may be using Meghan’s name and brand recognition to generate buzz for her new venture. She spent years adapting Meghan’s style for Kate. Translating that same formula into a private business is a nefarious but logical next step.

The business case is straightforward. Several of Kate’s preferred fashion labels have faced financial difficulties. Archer knows the industry well. She has observed Meghan build a lifestyle brand that attracts attention and drives revenue, regardless of personal opinions about the products. Staying tethered to the Wales aesthetic might limit her career options. Drawing from the Sussex playbook could be the smartest financial decision she could ever make

The Psychology of the Copy

The conversation shifts from fashion to something stranger when viewed alongside a separate incident involving a Black model named Tatiana Elizabeth. A white influencer named Lauren Blake used artificial intelligence to swap her own face onto Elizabeth’s body in a photograph taken at the US Open. The original image was erased. The Black woman’s identity was replaced, and people began asking the question: what drives a person to superimpose her own face over the image of a beautiful Black woman she appears to admire but will not credit?

In Elizabeth’s case, the answer appeared to be jealousy wrapped in racial insecurity. The influencer wanted the aesthetic of the Black model without the Black woman attached. The same pattern appears in a different form around Meghan Sussex. Some white women have been known to edit Meghan out of royal photographs and insert their own faces next to Prince Harry.

The resentment is not about clothing or handbags. A biracial woman married a white prince and now lives a life that some white women believe should have been theirs. The face swapping is not admiration. It is erasure. The fantasy requires removing the Black woman entirely so the editor can occupy her place.

Natasha Archer is not doing any of this. She is not swapping faces or editing Meghan out of photographs. She is borrowing an aesthetic, which is different in both degree and kind. But the same question lingers. Why does Meghan’s style provoke such intense copying, and why does that copying so often arrive with a current of hostility beneath the surface? The Tatiana Elizabeth case offers a clue. When admiration cannot coexist with the actual person, replacement becomes the default response.

The Two Kinds of Copying

There is normal fashion copying. Celebrities inspire trends. Fans recreate looks. Magazines publish “get the look for less” guides. Meghan has been on both sides of this equation. But the more revealing dynamic involves Kate. Photographic evidence shows Kate has repeatedly worn outfits that bear a striking resemblance to looks Meghan wore months or years earlier. The media has documented these instances extensively. A green dress here. A monochrome pantsuit there.

A particular style of coat or a specific way of knotting a belt. When Kate borrows from Diana or Elizabeth II, the press frames it as a tribute or a loving nod to royal history. But when Kate “borrows” from Meghan, the framing shifts. They either ignore it or make out that Meghan is doing the copying, which is demonstrably false.

A different category of copying exists beyond blazers and wide-leg trousers. This version wants to occupy the space itself rather than simply borrow its aesthetics. Face swaps and AI replacements fall into this category, as does the obsessive following of inner circle accounts, followed by a flurry of unfollowing once discovered. Launching a business that reads as a rebrand rather than an homage fits the same pattern.

Archer falls into a grey area. She is not digitally decapitating Meghan. But she is also not just buying a similar handbag. She built her reputation on Kate’s conservative, regal, palace-approved image. Now she is building her future on cream backgrounds, mood boards, and language about elevation and intention.

Final thoughts

Natasha Archer can run her business however she pleases. The free market has no patience for palace loyalties, and frankly, neither do most consumers. The Meghan aesthetic sells because it is warm, intentional, and beautifully curated. It connects with people. Coat dresses, tiaras, and stuffy palace formality? Hardly relatable. Archer would be foolish not to borrow from the winning formula, even if it means admitting that the woman she once helped style Kate to compete with is now the blueprint. The Daily Mail can clutch its pearls about “falling under Meghan’s spell” while pumping out more negative articles about the woman.

Meanwhile, Meghan keeps thriving, Archer keeps copying, and Kate keeps wearing those same safe, predictable coats. Some things never change. But the broader pattern is worth noting. Meghan, a biracial woman who married into the most famous family in the world, has become a template. Copying Meghan’s clothes is one behavior. Adopting her branding is another. A third and more disturbing act involves trying to erase her entirely and insert oneself into her place. These are not the same act, but they share a common root: an inability to simply let her exist without reaction.

If Archer’s new brand succeeds, she will have Meghan’s aesthetic to thank. Whether she ever acknowledges that debt is her own business. But the internet has a long memory for follow lists. And those cream backgrounds, logos, fonts and general style do not lie.