MEGHAN DUMPED?

Are Meghan’s money-making ventures in trouble? Royal biographer Emily Andrews finds out

- Emily Andrews

What exactly is going on with the Duchess of Sussex?

She’s been very quiet of late, given that she has a new cookery show, new handbag line and, of course, her new lifestyle brand American Riviera Orchard (ARO) in the works.

Meghan launched the very regal-looking website six months ago, but aside from some jars of jam sent to her besties (who dutifully plastered them all over social media), there has been nothing since.

She has filmed her new ‘cooking and hosting’ series for Netflix over the summer and apparently ARO merchandise (everything from branded dog biscuits to yoga mats) will be on sale early next year when the show airs.

Branding blow

ARO is intended to be a lifestyle brand to rival those of Gwyneth Paltrow or Reese Witherspoon and, I am told, will sell Meghan as a ‘beacon of inspiration, aspiration and attainability’.

Her style will be sold as ‘affordably elegant’ while her image will concentrate on her status as a familyorientated yet ‘regal’ figure, while customers will be urged to embrace their innate elegance and ‘elevate the everyday’.

But the beacon of inspiration has suffered a bit of a blow.

She has been refused a trademark for the brand, which is a problem (despite Sussex PRs terming the rejection ‘expected and routine’) because without it, anyone can imitate the brand, flog cut-price rip-offs and cheapen its image.

The US patent office has refused to issue a patent because it says businesses cannot trademark geographical locations and ‘The American Riviera’ is a commonly used nickname for Santa Barbara, California, where Harry and Meghan now live. It said the addition of the word Orchard ‘does not diminish the primarily geographical descriptiveness of the applied for mark’.