Let’s be honest, Meghan’s outfit to meet Malala was a total trainwreck… and it betrays what’s really going on behind the scenes of her UK return: JANE TIPPETT

‘Fit,’ fashion designer Ralph Lauren once said, ‘is everything.’

What then must the 86-year-old designer have thought when he saw American actress Meghan Markle turned British Duchess of Sussex parade forth onto the pavements with Malala Yousafzai outside Claridge’s in a pair of oversize palazzo pants, whose width and length quite literally dwarfed her 5ft 6in frame?

The petite Duchess seemed subsumed, not just by the fluid trousers which looked wrinkled and disheveled after her several hours of sitting and sipping tea in the hotel, but also by the blanket-like cognac colored Tove Studio coat which quite literally enveloped her.

Black Chanel clutch tucked under her arm, while carrying a jumbo and unsightly canvas tote, I feared she would not make it to the car door before tripping over the hem that dragged unceremoniously over the gritty London sidewalk.

Clad in neutrals (a trademark Californian color palette) and at great expense, Meghan is clearly aiming to bring the stealth wealth aesthetic that she has perfected in the last six years under the Montecito sun to British shores.

It is thus all the more surprising that having finally achieved a sartorial stride, Meghan – recently looking reliably herself in a minimalist and chic all-black skinny jean and sweater combo for a country pub lunch – should lurch so decidedly back in time. Lessons which she seemed to learn so effectively and have made her clothes a source of fascination and following for thousands of women – seem to have been blown out the window.

Yet despite the eye-watering price tag on each of the pieces that make up this drastically disastrous ensemble worth $37,000, she has betrayed an even greater flaw in her sartorial sensibility – the art of fine tailoring. Just steps away from the international center of Savile Row, the mecca of tailoring that set the standard for the $10.3 billion industry, Meghan appeared as if she has failed to learn its lessons.

Over the course of her near decade-long career as Harry’s plus-one it was her most regular failing – and perhaps this was the earliest and most visible sign of the cultural incompatibility between the Suits star and the Royal Family into which she married.

Meghan Markle turned British Duchess of Sussex was seen parading with Malala Yousafzai outside Claridge’s

Her oversize palazzo pants quite literally dwarfed her 5ft 6in frame

The petite Duchess seemed subsumed, not just by the fluid trousers which looked wrinkled and disheveled after her several hours of sitting and sipping tea in the hotel

That lack of tailoring was the most common cause for when her otherwise stunning outfits, made up of pricey designer labels, went badly wrong. Usually favoring off-the-rack ensembles, whose price was always immediately detectable by the press, she went a step further and failed to ensure that the pieces had been fitted to the specifications of what every woman knows is her unique physique.

The late Queen hardly ever accepted anything off the rack – her clothes, always a careful collaboration between herself and the designer – were crafted so that, like the gloves she wore, they fitted perfectly. Even her shoes, always handmade, were worn in by faithful dresser Angela Kelly to ensure that, as she sashayed forth on public engagements, she did so flawlessly.

King Charles III has rarely veered away from his favored Anderson & Sheppard suits and custom-made Emma Willis shirts. Even Queen Camilla has learned that the talents of bespoke are far more suited to a body that looks best when the clothes are made for it rather than the other way round.

And the Princess of Wales has, reliably turning to custom couture for her most important engagement – always mindful that only under the watchful eye of Catherine Walker’s atelier can the hemline, armlength and bust all sit perfectly even as she bends down to greet a child offering flowers.

Yet Meghan’s apparent aversion to this science seems to have been there from the outset. Even her exquisitely created wedding gown by Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy betrayed the tell-tale signs of someone who overlooked the fact the devil in dress is always in the detail. Emerging onto the sunlit steps of St. George’s Chapel, it was painfully obvious to see the unfortunate folds in the fabric across her waist, not to mention the far too many folds in sleeves that clearly needed a seam taken in.

Stepping out in July 2018 in a grey Roland Mouret dress, the still ‘royal’ Duchess apparently failed to notice the obviously inelegant folds of her dress that, at least across the bust, was just too tight and accordingly exposed the silhouette of the strapless bra she wore underneath.

And the green Emilia Wickstead cape dress, worn to great effect at the Commonwealth Service in March 2020, the Sussexes’ last public outing as working royals, was as noticeable for its dramatic over the shoulder cape as for its obvious ill-fittedness – as the green wool silk clung to all the wrong parts of Meghan’s figure.

Able to unleash to the full her love of skinny jeans, Markle radiated confidence in her white shirt and distressed denim at the 2017 Invictus Games

Stepping out in July 2018 in a grey Roland Mouret dress, the still ‘royal’ Duchess apparently failed to notice the obviously inelegant folds of her dress

Even her exquisitely created wedding gown by Clare Waight Keller for Givenchy betrayed the tell-tale signs of someone who overlooked tailoring

The green Emilia Wickstead cape dress was as noticeable for its dramatic over the shoulder cape as for its obvious ill-fittedness

At the time, this disconnect felt to me an expression of Meghan’s clear incompatibility with a world and its ways that she was, despite her undisputed charisma with a crowd, really not suited for. Doing her best to dress the part of royal consort, she seemingly failed to notice that her clothes, though always eye-wateringly expensive, failed to show her to best advantage largely because they simply didn’t fit.

And as a result, to me, she looked uncomfortable, a detail that ultimately became a metaphor for the wider disconnect between herself and her in-laws.

It is a convincing theory when one charts her notably upwards fashion trajectory once under the sunnier Santa Barbara skies. Able to unleash to the full her love of skinny jeans, Chanel flats and Hermes scarves, Markle basked in the casual chic that radiated the same confidence she brought in her white shirt and distressed denim at the 2017 Invictus Games when she first appeared on the arm of Prince Harry.

For the 2022 Invictus Games in the Netherlands, Meghan, in cropped denim, black tweed Celine jacket and her favored Chanel flats, looked both polished and herself – lending an undisputed glamour to an otherwise sweaty day of men’s sport.

But even her more formal appearances stateside had a sartorial subtlety that was missing in her working royal wardrobe. In 2022, she stunned in a custom white long-sleeved off-the-shoulder gown designed by Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière. Her cover in 2025 Harper’s Bazaar wearing a tuxedo jacket by Dior’s new creative wunderkind Jonathan Anderson oozed a sleek sensibility that seemed far removed from the clunky rippling of her off the rack red Safiyaa evening gown worn at the Mountbatten Festival of Music in March 2020.

And while Meghan did in the years of their Californian exile occasionally fall victim to her penchant for long flowing trousers that were clearly better suited to a statuesque 6-ft stature, she usually avoided a fashion catastrophe.

Her tan linen Ralph Lauren trouser suit worn in New York City in April 2025 was clearly a case of oversized and overdone, but the elegant neutrals paired with her suede five-inch Manolo Blahniks managed to pull off a look that could otherwise have gone very wrong like the Claridge’s ensemble.

For the 2022 Invictus Games, Meghan, in cropped denim, black tweed Celine jacket and her favored Chanel flats, looked both polished and herself

In 2022, she stunned in a custom white long-sleeved off-the-shoulder gown designed by Louis Vuitton’s Nicolas Ghesquière

Her cover in 2025 Harper’s Bazaar wearing a tuxedo jacket by Dior oozed a sleek sensibility

Her tan linen Ralph Lauren trouser suit worn in New York City in April 2025 was clearly a case of oversized and overdone

Today, with their new lives shrouded in secrecy, we know little of who and how the couple are being helped. Was there no stylist or dresser to tactfully remind that too long trousers paired with too big a coat would result in a silhouette that just felt sloppy?

While each piece on its own had merit – and perhaps looked more flattering seated at tea than in movement outdoors – together the effect was an explosion of confusion that, at least to me, felt like a metaphor for what life in the UK has already become for the wayward royal couple. Not part of but not out of the British Monarchy, they both exist in a kind of no-man’s land.

In what she would have invariably guessed would be a much discussed first outing, Meghan seems already to have lost her footing, at least when it comes to dress – unsure of who she is and how she can dress to effect for this new chapter in her life.