You know that feeling when you’re scrolling social media, and you see the Daily Mail have a collective aneurysm over a woman wearing clothes, and you just have to sit there wondering: Are these people okay?
Because I’ve been covering this beat for long enough to know that when Meghan Sussex steps out in a $70 dress, she’s “slumming it” and “disrespecting the monarchy.” And when she steps out in a $7,000 dress? Well, then she’s a “vulgar spendthrift” who “doesn’t understand the common people.” There is no sweet spot. There never has been. And frankly, that’s the point.
But the latest freakout, sorry, I mean “coverage”, over Meghan’s four-day Australia trip might actually be the most transparently ridiculous yet. So buckle up, because we’re about to do something the British tabloids seem incapable of: tell the truth about what actually happened.
The £57,000 Headline That Isn’t What It Seems
Let me save you some time. The Daily Mail wants you to believe that Meghan Sussex touched down in Australia and promptly dropped £57,776 (that’s about $74,000 for those in the US) on a wardrobe for a four-day “quasi-royal tour.” Cue the outrage. Cue the comparisons to Marie Antoinette and watch the comments section fill up with people who definitely didn’t read past the headline.
Here’s the thing the Mail conveniently forgot to mention in that big, scary number: nearly £47,000 of that total came from jewelry Meghan already owned. Let me repeat that, because it’s important: She did not buy these things on this trip. Let’s break it down, shall we? Because I love doing the Mail’s homework for them.
Now, I’m no mathematician, but £57,776 minus £47,065 leaves you with… about £10,711 for actual new clothing and shoes across four days of multiple engagements.
Suddenly that “vulgar spending spree” looks a lot like… a normal working wardrobe for a woman in the public eye doing back-to-back appearances. But the Mail isn’t interested in honest accounting. They’re interested in a narrative. And that narrative requires you to believe that Meghan walked into a boutique and said, “I’ll take the Cartier display case, please.”
Meanwhile, in Australia…
Here’s where it gets really interesting. Because while the British press was busy inflating numbers and working themselves into a lather, Australian fashion insiders were saying something completely different.
Elliot Garnaut, a fashion commentator on Australia’s The Morning Show, put it bluntly:
“To be honest, it’s significant for any brand, but when it comes to the smaller independent designers, this genuinely can change the trajectory of their entire business.”
Not “she’s vulgar.” Not “she’s monetizing tragedy.” “Change the trajectory of their entire business.” That’s the difference between British tabloid coverage and the actual industry perspective. One sees a woman to destroy. The other sees a woman using her platform to spotlight local talent. And Garnaut revealed something even more telling: Meghan’s team was directly contacting Australian designers via Instagram DMs. Meghan was personally reaching out to small Australian brands. Not the other way around.
“Meghan’s team has been contacting local Aussie designers on Instagram… the fact of the matter that they’re reaching out purely via social media is quite iconic.”
Imagine being a small designer in Melbourne or Sydney, opening your DMs, and seeing Meghan Sussex has messaged you. That’s strategic support of local industry. And the results? Australian labels reportedly started selling out like hotcakes.
The Shelter “Outrage” That Exposed Everything
Now let’s review the moment that really showed their hand: the women’s shelter visit. The Daily Mail and various talking heads lost their minds because Meghan wore the same outfit to a homeless shelter that she’d worn to an earlier engagement that morning. An outfit that, yes, included some of that “previously worn” jewelry the Mail is still counting as fresh spending.
The criticism was that she looked too expensive. That she should have changed into something cheaper. That she was “tone deaf.” But as Elliot Garnaut pointed out, and honestly, bless him for having the courage to say it out loud:
“She wore the outfit that she was actually wearing to her engagement that morning. So if anything, I think it’s showing a little bit of frugality from the Duchess of Sussex that she didn’t do a costume change in between commitment one and two.”
A costume change. Because that’s what they wanted. Some commentators wanted her to literally change clothes between a hospital visit and a shelter visit, as if the women at the shelter needed protection from the sight of a woman wearing nice things. One commenter on the Sky News Australia segment put it perfectly:
“It would have looked condescending to the women at the shelter if Meghan didn’t wear the same thing that she wore at the Royal Children’s Hospital. They look for any excuse to criticize.”
The expectation that Meghan should “dress down” for vulnerable women reveals something ugly about the critics, not about Meghan. It says: These women are not worth dressing up for. They should get the bargain bin version of you.
How is that not the actual insult here? But the tabloids don’t care about that nuance. They care about outrage. And outrage requires stripping every situation of its actual context.
The OneOff “Scandal” That Isn’t a Scandal
Now let’s address the other thing making the Mail reach for their smelling salts: OneOff. For those who haven’t been following along, OneOff is an AI-powered fashion platform that allows users to shop what celebrities are wearing in real time. Meghan is an investor and participant. When people buy items she’s worn through the platform’s links, she receives a commission.
Cue the Daily Mail shrieking about “monetizing” and “vulgarity” and “think of the Bondi victims!” But here’s what they’re not telling you: affiliate marketing is not new. Every time you click a tagged dress on Instagram and buy it, someone is making a commission. That’s how the entire modern fashion internet works.
What Meghan, a former blogger, mind you, has done is simply a more tech-forward version of something that already exists. And let’s be clear about something else: The 2020 transition agreement explicitly allowed Harry and Meghan to earn their own income and pursue private charitable interests. They are not taxpayer-funded, and they are not taking money from the British public. Prince Harry and Meghan Sussex, are self-funded individuals running a business.
But try explaining that to Ingrid Seward, the royal biographer who appeared on GB News to call Meghan “vile” and “crass” for… checks notes …having a job? First of all, Ingrid, you just called Australian designers’ clothes “unattractive.” How do you think that lands in Sydney? Second, and I cannot emphasize this enough, she hugged survivors of a terrorist attack. That was the actual human interaction. The fact that she also happened to be wearing clothes that people could buy online afterwards does not retroactively make the hug “mean nothing.”
Every single person clutching their pearls about Meghan “profiting” from attention is themselves profiting from talking about her. The Daily Mail sells ads against every Meghan article. GB News gets ratings from every Meghan segment. Ingrid Seward gets book deals from every Meghan media-manufactured controversy. But she’s the one who’s “vile”?
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Meghan wore clothes. The press tried to make it a crime
The irony in all this is that the Australian fashion story was, in its own way, quite straightforward. Meghan Sussex arrived for a high-profile visit, wore a run of Australian labels, helped generate real-time interest in local designers, and folded those choices into a modern celebrity-commerce ecosystem that already exists all around her. None of that is remotely shocking.
What remains shocking, if anything, is how eager the British media still is to turn her getting dressed into an offence. The Daily Mail’s £57,000 headline was not really about arithmetic. It was about emotional suggestion. The tabloids scorn was not really about style. It was about social punishment. The television pearl-clutching over shelters and survivors was not really about decorum. It was about making Meghan look suspect in any setting she enters.
That is why these stories keep coming. They are not fashion coverage in the ordinary sense. They are status discipline dressed up as style journalism. And yet the more the press strains to make Meghan look like a symbol of excess, the more obvious the game becomes. Australia saw a woman supporting local designers and moving product. Britain saw another opportunity to run the same old script. The real scandal is not that Meghan Sussex wore expensive clothes. It is that a section of the British media still believes a woman’s wardrobe is the easiest place to hide its malice.
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