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Showing posts from February, 2019

Did Meghan Markle plan to be an Oscar presenter in this dress?

On Sunday evening, February 24, 2019, the Duchess of Sussex appeared at a party wearing a sand-colored Dior cape gown with long, crystal-embellished sleeves. The party, at the British ambassador's residence in Rabat, Morocco wasn't particularly dressy; Prince Harry wore an ordinary business suit, not a tuxedo, and most of the other women present wore conservative office clothes. Meghan was by far the most elaborately dressed person in the room, and it was soon revealed that she was the most expensively dressed person in the room as well. The dress was Dior haute couture, and the fashion house released a statement saying that the dress had been designed and made specifically for Meghan. Similar custom-made haute couture dresses are priced at $50,000 or above. The Daily Mail priced this one at  £ 98,945.84 without giving a specific source for that price. Why was Meg wearing a dress that cost more than many people's homes for a glorified house party? The Oscar

Meghan Markle, gratuitous spending and the lust for labels

I don't remember much of my university-level German classes, but I do remember one of the lines we had to repeat for pronunciation practice: Worüber man spricht, das hat man nicht.  Loosely translated into English, that means You talk about what you don't have . Starving people talk about food. Lonely or heartsick people talk about the person who has vanished from their lives, or the romance (or sex) they're missing out on. People who are in a relationship but aren't sure it is solid tend to overdo the physical language of PDA. And people who aren't confident of their own worth need to constantly demonstrate their status via high-end brand names and luxury products. Here we come to Meghan Markle. The $500,000 baby shower This week Meghan's $500,000 baby shower in New York City was widely covered in the tabloids. It took place at what was called the most expensive hotel suite in the USA, at $75,000 a night, and Meg's guests feasted on $150 steaks

Meghan Markle, Jussie Smollett, and the Biracial Dilemna

Meghan Markle is biracial, and has proudly made her dual heritage part of her identity. Every follower of the Meghan drama has heard the story of how her (now discarded) father once purchased two Barbie doll families and selected the Black mom and White dad dolls to match Meghan's own family. (Not sure what happened to the White mom and Black dad dolls - maybe passed on to Zendaya a few years later?) Meg also wrote  an essay for Elle  about her mixed-race heritage headlined "I'm More Than An Other". More and more kids today are mixed-race, and it could even be argued that mixed-race is becoming the contemporary standard of beauty. (At the very least, the housewives populating TV commercials in the US all seem to be a mix of Asian, Hispanic, and Black. No more blonde ladies hugging the toilet paper or pouring the kids' Kool-Aid). But growing up mixed-race is not without challenges. You're never 100% one or the other. Many mixed-race people deal with r

Who is paying for Meghan Markle's PR?

Meghan Markle is on the cover of this week's People Magazine in the US, part of what Enty has suggested is a long paid co-operation with the magazine to ensure positive coverage. But how much does this type of coverage cost? A poster on CDAN yesterday who said she had worked on the advertising side for 15+ years listed some prices. Her comment: Any sort of print advertising is going to cost you: a single, full page ad in People is $386,400. Editorial coverage is sold in bundles, but it runs every bit as high.  A huge caveat to these prices is that stories about royals sell - palace PR firms know full well that they can negotiate down the price by offering up exclusive interviews/photos and by leveraging past sales figures. To put into perspective how much money royals generate: Entire sections (featured on the home page) of Hello!, US, OK! and People's websites are devoted to them. Prime real estate like that is based on revenue. People then takes it to an entire

Meghan Markle vs the Bloggers

One might think that a princess in a palace would have better things to do than go after a disabled middle-aged woman living in a trailer park in Florida. Apparently not, if you are Princess Henry, the Duchess of Sussex. The former Meghan Markle's highly-paid PR team - and it's not clear if that team is paid by the British taxpayer or from Meg's merching income - placed several stories in high-circulation British newspapers over the weekend of February 2, 2019. The stories "named and shamed" several bloggers who have been Meghan detractors, including Deanne Masters, who blogs under the name JerseyDeanne. Deanne is a two-time cancer survivor living with fibromyalgia who passes the time blogging in a relatively innocent way (no profanity) about hunky Superman actor Henry Cavill, make-up tips for ladies over 50, her love for the British Royal Family, and her disdain for Meghan Markle. Here's Deanne as described in the Daily Mail article .  Dea