The Royal Influencers

HAVING THE MIDAS TOUCH — LIKE MUM THE ROYAL INFLUENCERS HOW THE YOUNGER GENERATIONS OF ROYALS ARE DRIVING SALES

- Emily Horan

It has long been the case that the outfits the Duchess of Cambridge wears sell out within hours of her being seen in them and, according to jewelry designer Annoushka Ducas, the “Kate effect” can’t be bettered.

Speaking at the Hay Festival in Hay-on-Wye last week, she said: “People pay influencers a fortune to wear jewelry on the catwalk or at the Oscars, but my experience is that this has absolutely no influence on sales at all unless it is somebody like the Duchess of Cambridge. She is her own brand, and she is internationally well known and that drives traffic from all over the world.”

Annoushka first saw the Kate effect first hand in 2012 when her baroque pearl drop earrings flew off the shelves after Kate wore them on her and the Duke’s tour of South-East Asia and the South Pacific to mark the Diamond Jubilee.

Kate’s retail power is closely followed by that of the Duchess of Sussex. The white belted coat by Canadian brand Line the Label that she wore at the photocall following the announcement of her engagement to Prince Harry in 2017 saw fans rush to the company’s website, causing it to crash. And thus the “Meghan effect” was born.

GOLD STANDARD

It’s not just the Duchesses who have the Midas touch. The latest figures show that the youngest generation of royals has notable pulling power, too. When Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor made his public debut last month, his parents the Duke and Duchess of Sussex wrapped him in a merino wool shawl and cashmere hat by Nottingham family firm GH Hurt & Son.

Director Gillian Taylor, the fourth generation of the family to be involved in the knitwear business, tells Hello!: “In the 24 hours after Archie appeared, we witnessed over 25,000 visitors to our modest webshop, which would typically see visitor numbers in the hundreds.”