American Riviera Orchard: What Is Meghan Markle’s New Lifestyle Brand?

A new brand has appeared on Instagram overnight, which appears to be a new business venture from Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex: American Riviera Orchard. But what is the brand, and what can we expect to come of it? Here’s everything we know so far.

What Is American Riviera Orchard?

Nine images were posted on the @americanrivieraorchard Instagram account, joining together to form a gold emblem, with the words ‘American Riviera Orchard’ scrawled beneath in loopy writing, with ‘Montecito’ a line below in block capital letters. Montecito is the California town Meghan lives in with husband Prince Harry and their children. Montecito is located in Santa Barbara, which is otherwise known as the American Riviera thanks to its temperate climate, landscapes, and food and wine culture. As for Orchard, we’re not quite sure yet.

@americanrivieraorchard

An Instagram story was posted, too, showing a vintage style video of someone arranging white flowers, Meghan stirring something in a baking bowl and a woman dressed in a ball gown spied through a slowly closing glass door. This is all soundtracked by ‘I Wish You Love’ by Nancy Wilson.

The account’s bio reads simply ‘by Meghan, The Duchess of Sussex⁣⁣⁣’ and ‘Established 2024⁣⁣⁣’, with a link to the website. The website shows the emblem again, prompting visitors to enter their email address to join a waitlist and to confirm ‘Yes, I would love to be the first to know about products, availability, and updates from American Riviera Orchard.’

And those are all of the clues. It’s all very cryptic and hush hush, but we can glean a small insight into what to expect.

Products

Firstly, we know American Riviera Orchard will sell products of some kind, with the email waitlist hinting at ‘products, availability and updates’.

Lifestyle Brand

According to Page Six, American Riviera Orchard ‘will focus on home, garden, food and general lifestyle wares’ – or so says an insider. It’s a throwback to Meghan’s pre-royal days when she ran lifestyle blog The Tig. ‘She’s been working on this for over a year and it’s all the things that are close to her heart – all the things she’s passionate about,’ an industry source told Page Six Style.

Food & Home Goods

A trademark application obtained by Page Six Style also reveals American Riviera Orchard will sell home goods, including edible goods like jellies, jams and spreads, tableware such as cutlery, table linens and drinkware, and cookbooks. We’re sensing a tradwife, cottagecore vibe…

The news follows rumours the Duchess has been looking to Gwyneth Paltrow’s GOOP brand for inspiration, especially after she reportedly applied to trademark ‘The Tig’ in 2022, despite shutting the site down in 2017.

Sign Up

Well, it’s safe to say that we’re intrigued. What will come of it? Watch this space – and join us on the mailing list at americanriviera.com