So much for the “Duchess of Dior.”
While the Mail on Sunday reported yesterday that Meghan Markle “may be on the brink of signing a major deal with French couture house Dior to make her a face of the company,” Page Six Style has learned there’s no such “mega-bucks” contract in the works.
A spokesperson for the Sussexes similarly told the Telegraph the claims were untrue, with a Dior source adding that the house’s team was “nonplussed as to how the story came about.”
The Daily Mail’s column came days after Markle and husband Prince Harry parted ways with Spotify after signing a $20 million deal with the audio streamer in 2020.
“There have been rumors for weeks that [Markle’s] about to sign a deal with Dior which has put the gossip mill into overdrive,” a “prominent Beverly Hills socialite” told the Mail.
“If she pulls that off, then no one will remember that her silly little podcast got cancelled after one season.”
It’s true that partnerships with major design houses come with massive paydays; Johnny’s Depp’s latest Dior deal netted the actor “upwards of $20 million,” per Variety, while Jennifer Lawrence extended her contract with the brand for “between $15 and $20 million” in 2014, as Page Six reported at the time.
But while royal watchers shouldn’t expect to see Markle fronting Dior campaigns or rubbing elbows with house ambassadors like Rihanna, Jennifer Lawrence and Natalie Portman anytime soon, she’s long been a fan of the luxury label’s makeup and designs.
She’s rumored have worn a full face of Dior Beauty products on her wedding day in 2018, and went on to select a navy fit-and-flare frock from the label for a Royal Air Force event in 2018, a cream-colored Dior Haute Couture gown during her 2019 tour of Morocco and a white coat dress and hat from the house for a thanksgiving service during the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022.
Markle’s also turned to Dior for more personal moments, wearing the brand during son Prince Archie’s christening in 2019 and donning a Stephen Jones for Dior hat for Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022.
Prince Harry, meanwhile, wore a three-piece Dior suit to his father’s coronation in May, and opted for the same label for a March court appearance.
For more Page Six Style …
A Sussex source told the Telegraph the duke’s “long existing relationship with the house” was inherited from his late mother, Princess Diana, and that he just “likes working with Dior, and wearing their clothes.”
Indeed, Dior was a favorite of Diana’s; in the mid-’90s, she was photographed carrying one of its distinctive quilted handbags so often, in fact, that the brand renamed it the Lady Dior in her honor.
Today, the style’s owned by celebrities including Sarah Jessica Parker, Angelina Jolie, Adele — and Markle.
