Meghan Markle and the Princess of Wales: Two Royal Style Signatures

Few double acts in modern fashion are watched as closely as Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, and Catherine, Princess of Wales. Between them, the two women have spent close to two decades in front of the world’s cameras, and in that time each has built a royal style signature entirely her own: one rooted in the ateliers of British couture, the other in the pared-back ease of the California coast.

What is striking, looked at properly, is not how the two compare but how completely they diverge. Catherine’s wardrobe speaks the long, formal grammar of royal dressing: bespoke coats, embroidered gowns, a roll-call of British names stretching back to her mother-in-law’s era. Meghan’s speaks a newer, quieter language: clean lines, a tight neutral palette, a handful of trusted labels worn on repeat. Both, in their different ways, have become genuinely influential dressers, proof that there is more than one way to do royal style well.

This is the story of two wardrobes built on opposite instincts, and why both continue to matter.

Catherine’s wardrobe: heritage couture with a diplomatic thread

Catherine’s style has always been built on continuity. She favours the atelier Catherine Walker for the most formal occasions (state visits, memorials, portraits that will be studied for decades), a relationship the house has held with the Princess of Wales title since Diana’s era. For red-carpet glamour and long-haul tours, she turns to Jenny Packham, whose embellished gowns have marked galas from London to the Caribbean.

Alexander McQueen has been part of her story since before she was a royal at all: Sarah Burton, the house’s creative director, designed Catherine’s 2011 wedding gown, and has dressed her for major state occasions ever since. For crisp, considered day dressing (Wimbledon’s Royal Box, fashion-week-adjacent engagements) she leans on Emilia Wickstead’s structured coats and dresses. And running through all of it is Burberry, worn for the kind of tailored power suiting that has become her signature at official engagements, a nod to British heritage manufacturing as much as to personal taste.

Every choice does double duty. A Catherine Walker coat is elegant, but it is also a quiet acknowledgement of a decades-long royal relationship; a McQueen gown on tour carries British craft to a global audience. Hers is a wardrobe built for formality and legacy, worn with the confidence of someone who has spent fifteen years learning exactly what the role requires.

Meghan’s wardrobe: the case for less

Meghan’s signature has developed in almost the opposite direction. Where Catherine’s style leans into embellishment and occasion, Meghan’s has become steadily more pared-back, what fashion writers now describe as “quiet luxury”: clean silhouettes, a tightly edited palette of cream, camel, navy and black, and an evident preference for cut and fabric over decoration.

The instinct predates her move to California. Even during her working royal years she favoured monochrome tailoring and structural coat-dresses from houses including Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney, building a wardrobe on shape rather than print. Settled now in Montecito, that instinct has simply relaxed into its natural habitat: cashmere knits, fluid trousers and easy dresses from contemporary, often California-based labels such as Cuyana, Jenni Kayne and Anine Bing, brands prized for exactly the kind of considered, “fewer, better things” philosophy her wardrobe has come to embody.

Her Netflix series, With Love, Meghan, made the approach explicit: a capsule of interchangeable, texture-led pieces designed to be worn and re-worn, rather than a rotating parade of one-off statement looks. It is a genuinely modern way to dress in public, and it has quietly reshaped what people expect a global style figure to look like.

When two very different wardrobes meet in the middle

For all the contrast, the two women’s approaches share more common ground than the coverage sometimes suggests. Both favour tailoring as a foundation rather than an accessory: a sharply cut blazer does more work in either wardrobe than any amount of jewellery. Both have, at various points, chosen a near-identical shade of camel or cream coat, evidence less of imitation than of a shared instinct that a well-cut neutral outerwear piece is one of the hardest-working items any wardrobe can hold.

Both women have also embraced a version of sustainable dressing. Catherine is well known for re-wearing and even reworking favourite Catherine Walker or Jenny Packham pieces years after their debut; Meghan’s capsule-wardrobe philosophy is built, by design, around a small number of pieces worn in rotation. Neither approach is about frugality (both are dressed by choice, not necessity), but each reflects a broader shift in how visible women are choosing to think about clothes: fewer purchases, better ones, worn for longer.

The overlap is a reminder that “heritage” and “minimalist” are two answers to the same question: how do you dress with intention when the world is watching every outfit?

The economics of influence: two effects, one phenomenon

Catherine’s sway over British fashion has a name, the “Kate Effect”, and evidence behind it. A 2018 Brand Finance study named her the most powerful royal fashion influencer, and pieces she wears, from a Zara dress to a bespoke Jenny Packham gown, have a well-documented habit of selling out within hours. Designers describe an immediate surge in enquiries the moment a garment is photographed on her.

Meghan generates a strikingly similar ripple. Long before “quiet luxury” entered the fashion lexicon, a white coat she wore for her 2017 engagement announcement sold out so fast that the retailer’s website reportedly struggled to keep up, a moment the press nicknamed the “Markle Sparkle.” That instinct for moving stock has travelled with her into her California years, with brands featured on With Love, Meghan reporting spikes in traffic within days of an episode airing.

Different wardrobes, in other words, produce the same commercial gravity. Whether the piece in question is a couture gown or a cashmere jumper, both women have shown that a single, well-chosen outfit can move an entire market.

Two women, two grammars of modern royal dressing

Step back far enough and the pattern becomes clear: Catherine and Meghan represent two coherent, fully realised answers to the same brief: how does a woman in an extraordinary public position use clothing to say something true about herself? Catherine answers with formality, craft and continuity, a wardrobe built to honour institutions that stretch back generations. Meghan answers with restraint, texture and calm, a wardrobe built for the pace and light of a very different life.

Neither approach is more “royal” than the other, and neither needs to be judged against it. What both share is discipline: a clear point of view, applied consistently, until it becomes recognisable at a glance. That, more than any single designer name, is the real skill on display.

Why both stories matter

There is something genuinely instructive in watching two such different women succeed by such different means. Catherine shows what patience and heritage can achieve over a public life measured in decades; Meghan shows how quickly a considered, modern point of view can build its own kind of authority. Fashion-watchers get to enjoy both approaches without ever needing to choose a favourite, which, in the end, may be the most refreshing way to read either wardrobe.

Browse our Royal Style & Fashion stories for more of the designers, jewels and wardrobes shaping modern royal dressing.

Frequently asked questions

What designers does Catherine, Princess of Wales, wear most often?

She regularly wears Catherine Walker for formal and state occasions, Alexander McQueen (designed by Sarah Burton, who created her 2011 wedding gown) for major events, Jenny Packham for galas and tours, Emilia Wickstead for structured day dresses, and Burberry for tailored power suiting.

What is Meghan Markle’s style known as?

Her current wardrobe is widely described as “quiet luxury” or “California cool”: clean silhouettes, a neutral palette of cream, camel and navy, and a preference for cut and fabric over embellishment, built around a small, considered capsule of pieces.

Do Meghan and Catherine wear the same designers?

Occasionally. Both have worn Alexander McQueen and Stella McCartney at points in their public lives, but their day-to-day wardrobes draw on largely different rosters: Catherine favours established British couture houses, while Meghan gravitates toward contemporary, often California-based labels.

What is the “Kate Effect”?

The Kate Effect describes the surge in sales, often a complete sell-out, that follows Catherine wearing a particular piece. A 2018 Brand Finance study named her the most powerful royal fashion influencer.

Does Meghan have a similar effect on sales?

Yes. Pieces she has worn, from her 2017 engagement coat to brands featured on her series With Love, Meghan, have repeatedly sold out or seen sharp spikes in demand, a pattern the press nicknamed the “Markle Sparkle.”

Who designed Catherine’s wedding dress, and who designed Meghan’s?

Catherine’s 2011 wedding gown was designed by Sarah Burton for Alexander McQueen. Meghan’s 2018 gown was designed by Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy.

Why do both women re-wear their clothes?

Both have embraced a form of considered, sustainable dressing: Catherine by re-wearing and occasionally reworking favourite gowns and coats years after their debut, and Meghan through a deliberate capsule-wardrobe approach built around a small number of pieces worn in rotation.

Is one woman’s style more “royal” than the other’s?

Not in any meaningful sense. Catherine’s wardrobe reflects the formal, heritage-led expectations of a future queen consort; Meghan’s reflects the calmer, more private life she has built outside official royal duties. Both are coherent, deliberate approaches to dressing in public.

Designer names, brand affiliations and stylistic details are correct as of 2026 and may change; for the latest on either wardrobe, see current reporting from WWD, Grazia and Harper’s Bazaar.