Meghan Markle's Wales Bonner dress sparks search surge

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
May 9, 2019

While interest in Britain's new Royal baby, Archie, is expected to drive sales for some babywear suppliers higher, consumer interest in his mother, Hollywood-star-turned-duchess Meghan Markle, is keeping everything she wears in the public eye. And her appearance after giving birth this week has generated a search surge.

Stylight, the aggregation platform for fashion and lifestyle, said that only a day after photos of Meghan and her son were released, it saw a 1,633% search increase for the Wales Bonner brand that she was wearing.

That continues a tradition stretching back decades of the clothes royal wives and girlfriends wear for engagement announcements, official visits and royal baby unveilings selling out fast.

The Stylight team has also been tracking the e-commerce sales impacts of the Duchess of Sussex’s maternity outfits in the past few months and it found that in general, the term “Meghan Markle pregnant” has been Googled eight times more than that of major royal influencer “Kate Middleton”.

It said that since the early days of her pregnancy, the Duchess (Meghan, not Kate) has been publicly photographed in 40 different clothing brands with three labels proving to be her favourites, including Canadian-founded Club Monaco, Jason Wu, and Clare Waight Keller at Givenchy (the latter seeming to be her favourite brand overall).

But other labels have benefited from the Meghan effect too. For International Women’s Day, she chose a $345 printed mini dress from British brand Reiss. After photographs of the 60s-inspired dress surfaced, Stylight saw a 25% search increase for the label the following week.

She also wears a lot of coats for official engagements and after she was spotted in a Victoria Beckham coat on Christmas Day, Stylight saw a 25% increase in “Victoria Beckham” searches that lasted until mid-January.

Her pick of Sentaler’s red coat for a trip in January also proved popular with Google Trends seeing a 100% increase in “Sentaler” searches within 24 hours of her wearing the Canadian brand and a 30% increase for “Sentaler coat.” 

And while flat shoes are a strong trend, especially for pregnant women, the Duchess has continued to wear ultra-high heels. Stylight counted 21 different shoe brands over the course of her pregnancy. Her top designer pick seems to be Colombian brand Aquazzura, followed by Manolo Blahnik and Stuart Weitzmann. She chose to wear Aquazzura’s Deneuve pumps for a Commonwealth Day (March 11) event in London and over the following days, searches for Aquazzura nearly doubled. Between March 12 and 14, Aquazzura search queries increased by 90% on Stylight.