Meghan Markle Spent More Money On Her Wardrobe Than Any Other Royal – By A Long Shot

Meghan Markle spent more money on her wardrobe than any other female member of the Royal Family – and it wasn’t even close, Glamour is reporting. The Duchess’ fashion bill for 2018 came it at a hair over half a million – if you don’t count her wedding gown, that is.

The blog “UFO – Unidentified Fashion Object” looked at all of the photos of Meghan in which she was wearing a garment she hadn’t been seen in before, identified the garment — if they could, that is — looked up the retail price, and calculated the total. Their research allows for the fact that some of her garments couldn’t be identified; they also allowed for the fact that some of her outfits might have been private gifts or loans from particular designers, and aren’t available at retail.

With those caveats, when all of the number-crunching was done, the blog determined that the Duchess of Sussex plopped down approximately $508,258 on new clothes in 2018. The grand total would have been considerably higher if her wedding gown — which itself could have exceeded six figures — was included (it wasn’t).

By comparison, the Duchess spent just under half a million more than the next-biggest Royal spender, her sister-in-law, Kate Middleton, the Duchess of Cambridge. She’s estimated to have spent $85,097. The most frugal royal spender was Meghan’s new cousin-in-law, Princess Eugenie, who only spent an estimated $39,818 on new clothes, not counting her wedding gown.

The Meghan Markle effect is bigger than most realize. She attracts the admiration and attention of usually disinterested Americans. She inspires and emboldens women of color to see their own power and worth. She challenges issues of class and wealth.

Happy 2019. #MeghanMarkle pic.twitter.com/F0HxSvB9ZC

— Anne Boleyn (“Royal Expert") (@TudorChick1501) January 1, 2019

Now, of course, a couple of caveats are worth mentioning. For one thing, the UFO blog is just that – someone’s blog – and isn’t necessarily an unimpeachable source. And second, unless Meghan shows her receipts — which she’s exceedingly unlikely to do — no one can say with any certainty how much she really spent on fashion.

When you think about it, as Glamour writer Christopher Rosa points out, there’s actually a good reason Meghan outspent her new relatives on fashion by orders of magnitude: she’s new to the family, and to royalty in general. Whereas Kate, Eugenie, the Queen, and others have had years to fill their closets with designer brands, Meghan basically had to start from scratch. This year, she may wind up not spending as much on fashion, now that she and her advisers have had some time to give her a properly-stocked royal closet.

“After all, how many of these giant and extremely well-coordinated pink hats (below) do you think Markle had before meeting Prince Harry?”