Prince Harry went skydiving for charity in Canada and the first person he called to say he had landed safely was his wife, Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex.
There is something wonderfully ordinary about that sentence. And yet, at the same time, something rather lovely.
This is a couple who have been subjected to an extraordinary amount of public scrutiny, and yet they somehow keep giving us these little glimpses of a marriage that appears remarkably thoughtful.
They think of each other.
They show up for each other.
And in this particular case, after Harry jumped out of an airplane, the person he apparently wanted to speak to when his feet were safely back on the ground was his wife.
According to Harry, Meghan had not needed convincing about the jump. She was, however, relieved when it was over. Harry joked that because it had taken them quite a while to get into the air, she had apparently been wondering, “Are they down yet? Are they down yet?”
It is such a married-couple moment.
Her husband is thousands of miles away, preparing to leap out of an airplane.
She is waiting to hear that he has landed safely.
He lands.
He calls.
She can relax.
And naturally, here at The Marion Chronicles, after establishing that Harry was alive and well, we had another pressing question.
What was Meghan wearing when the telephone rang?
Completely shallow?
Perhaps.
But around here, these things matter.
Somewhere in the Cotswolds…
This is where the facts stop and our imagination gets to have a little fun. We imagine Meghan somewhere in the Cotswolds on an early autumn afternoon. Perhaps the school run is already done.
There may have been coffee somewhere along the way. Emails have been answered. Work has been handled. One of the children may have left something on the kitchen table that was supposed to be in a school bag. There is a husband in Canada doing something involving an airplane and a parachute that she would probably prefer not to think about too carefully. And her telephone is nearby. What is she wearing?
I see wide-legged chocolate-brown trousers, an ivory cashmere turtleneck and a beautifully soft tobacco suede jacket.
On her feet, burgundy velvet loafers.
Perhaps there is a large leather tote sitting on a chair nearby, still containing the accumulated evidence of the morning: sunglasses, notebook, phone charger, a receipt, lip balm and something belonging to one of the children.
Nothing fussy.
Nothing that announces itself as a Duchess outfit. Just rich autumn colour, beautiful texture and that particular kind of relaxed polish that looks as though nobody tried terribly hard. Then the telephone rings.
Canada.
Harry is safely down.
And for one tiny moment, forget titles, headlines, royal dramas and everything else that surrounds Harry and Meghan. It is just a wife hearing her husband’s voice after he has done something slightly terrifying. That may be the most aspirational thing about the whole story.
Perhaps This Is What Living Your Best Life Actually Looks Like
An aspirational life doesn’t necessarily have to be a spectacular one. Sometimes it is simply a life that increasingly resembles the one you wanted. A husband can travel to Canada and keep a promise to a veteran. A wife can stay behind with their children. The children can go to school.
There can be work to do, dinner to think about, dogs to walk, telephone calls to answer and ordinary family logistics unfolding against an extraordinarily beautiful English-country backdrop.
And somewhere within all of that, there can still be cashmere.
There can still be suede.
There can absolutely be burgundy velvet loafers. Because aspiration isn’t necessarily about acquiring a completely different life. Sometimes it is about making the life you already have feel more like your own. And perhaps that is exactly why I became so fascinated by imagining Meghan in the Cotswolds.
I Wasn’t Really Imagining Ten Outfits. I Was Imagining a Life.
When I created MEGHAN: A Cotswolds Style Capsule — Imagining the Duchess’ Time in England, ostensibly I was imagining clothes.
Velvet.
Tweed.
Suede.
Denim.
Beautiful coats.
Wonderful boots.
Clothes for market mornings, country lunches, dog walks, school runs and those slightly glamorous evenings when the Cotswolds stops pretending it isn’t one of the chicest places in Britain.
But somewhere along the way, I realized I wasn’t really imagining ten outfits.
I was imagining a life.
A woman walking into a country pub in a fabulous coat.
A mother arriving at the school gate in jeans and boots.
A wife waiting for her husband to telephone from Canada.
A woman with work to do, children to raise, places to go and absolutely no reason to abandon beautiful clothes while doing any of it.
That is the world of the Cotswolds Style Capsule.
It is not a biography.
It does not claim that Meghan owns or wore any of these clothes.
It is fashion storytelling: an imagined wardrobe inspired by a woman, a place and the delicious possibility of a new chapter.
The Delicious Little Impulse Buy
And yes, I am perfectly comfortable calling the book an impulse buy. Not everything we purchase has to solve a problem. Some things are allowed to exist simply because they give us pleasure. We are allowed one collector’s item in our possession. You might buy it because you like Meghan. Because you love clothes. Because you’re fascinated by the Cotswolds. Because you want something pretty sitting on your coffee table. Because the idea of velvet, tweed, suede and fabulous boots makes an autumn afternoon seem considerably more interesting. Or because, after 50, you have finally realized that pleasure itself is a perfectly respectable reason to buy something.
Think of MEGHAN: A Cotswolds Style Capsule as the first Cotswolds edit.
There are more stories to tell.
More clothes to imagine.
More places to visit.
And considerably more of this imagined aspirational English life for us to explore.
Harry got the adrenaline rush.
Meghan got the telephone call.
We got the clothes.
Everybody wins.
MEGHAN: A Cotswolds Style Capsule — Imagining the Duchess’ Time in England by Marion T.D. Lewis is available on Amazon.
Editor’s Note: The Cotswolds scene and clothing described in this article are imaginative editorial interpretations. They are not representations of what Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, was actually doing or wearing when Prince Harry called her, and no endorsement or association is implied.