Meghan Markle took part in her first ever podcast interview as a guest on April 28, appearing on friend and IT Cosmetics founder Jamie Kern Lima’s self-titled show.
Kern Lima asked Meghan about the “Meghan Effect” in the interview, where whatever Meghan wears tends to sell out or spike in sales.
Meghan said that she used her clothing choices to send messages when she couldn’t, seemingly referring to her years as a working royal before stepping back from the role in January 2020.
On her first ever podcast interview as a guest, Meghan Markle told friend Jamie Kern Lima on her eponymous show that she used her outfits to send messages when she couldn’t.
Likely alluding to her time as a working royal from 2018 to 2020—a time Meghan doesn’t describe as such, but instead referred to on the April 28 episode as a time when she “wasn’t out talking”—Meghan spoke of the so-called “Meghan Markle Effect,” where many items of clothing, shoes, and accessories the Duchess of Sussex wears sell out and experience a huge spike in sales. (Take, for example, the Valencia Key Joy bracelet Meghan wore to the Invictus Games in February; the brand’s owner told Forbes that the company’s sales spiked 11,000 percent after Meghan wore the accessory.) The “Meghan Markle Effect” trickles down to Meghan herself, who sold out the entire eight-product collection of her lifestyle brand As Ever’s first drop earlier this month in under an hour.
Meghan Markle wearing the Valencia Key Joy bracelet on February 9, 2025
“There’s this thing known as the ‘Meghan Effect,’” said Kern Lima, who is the founder of IT Cosmetics. “How does that make you feel?”
Meghan said that it felt “really great when specifically it can help uplift brands that have a great ethos and female founders.”
“You know, there was a long time where…I wasn’t out talking,” she continued. “So if you couldn’t hear me, how could I be heard through what I was wearing if that was what people were focusing on?”
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Meghan Markle and Prince Harry in Australia on October 17, 2018
Meghan told Kern Lima that she didn’t “have to say a word” but her wardrobe “would move product for small companies,” pointing specifically to a pair of Outland Denim jeans she wore during her royal tour of Australia in 2018 with husband Prince Harry. Meghan shared the company “would take women out of positions of being trafficked and instead give them jobs.”
“By wearing those jeans, I knew it was going to allow them to save more women,” she said.
“All of those things end up becoming a touchpoint that’s really high value to me,” she said, adding that “being able to hear the stories of how it has helped them or their businesses and even just—it could have been the day that they were going to give up, could have been the day that they’re just going, ‘Why am I doing this? It’s not worth it.’”
“If I can come in with a little sprinkle of fairy dust just by wearing a bracelet or doing something that changes the course of their business, that’s a huge honor to be able to have that kind of impact for someone,” Meghan said. She added, “To still be heard and in that, allow other people’s voices to be heard…That, to me, it’s worth its weight in gold.”
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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on December 1, 2017
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Prince Harry and Meghan Markle on December 1, 2017
In a profile last year in The New York Times, Meghan said she spends “a lot of time just Googling, looking for brands. When people are online looking for things or reading things, I’m trying to find great new designers, especially in different territories.”
Meghan told the outlet that she realized the attention being paid to her wardrobe as far back as 2017, not long after her engagement to Harry that November, when she carried a bag from the Scottish brand Strathberry for a December 1 appearance with him that sold out in 11 minutes after Meghan wore it. When Meghan learned about this—especially that it allowed Strathberry to expand its workforce—it “changed everything in terms of how I then looked at putting an outfit together,” she said.
“Times where I know there is a global spotlight, and attention will be given to each detail of what I may or may not be wearing, then I support designers that I have really great friendships with, and smaller, up-and-coming brands that haven’t gotten the attention that they should be getting,” Meghan added. “That’s one of the most powerful things that I’m able to do, and that’s simply wearing, like, an earring.”
Read the original article on InStyle